“This is the part where you listen very carefully,” I murmur.“There are witnesses inside this house and a doorcam across the street because the neighbor’s paranoid about raccoons.You put your hands on me first.You showed up here uninvited to harass a woman who has already reported you.Leave.Now.Or we escalate this legally, publicly, and permanently.”
I let him go.He stumbles before he whirls, his face red with fury and humiliation.
“I’m not done,” he snarls at the house.“This is not over.”
“Yes,” Olivia says from behind me, voice ringing like a bell.“It is.”
He looks between us, her refusal and my stance, and understands something fundamental has shifted that he can’t undo.Fear flickers, ugly and brief before he covers it with venom.
“You’ll regret this,” he spits at her.
I step forward, blocking his line of sight entirely.“Go.”
He does.It’s not far, and it’s not fast—he needs the last word, the last glare—but he goes.His car peels away with unnecessary revving because small men love loud engines.
Silence slams down after his car disappears around the corner and I turn around.
Olivia stands in the doorway like she’s made of glass and iron at the same time.Her hands are trembling, but her chin is high and her eyes burning too bright to be safe.
Our gazes lock and the brave front shatters but I’m already moving.
She breaks against me with a choked sound that tears straight through my chest, and I wrap her up hard, one hand in her hair, the other spread low on her back like I can hold her together if I just want it enough.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur into the soft place beneath her ear.My voice is steady even if I’m not.“I’ve got you, Olivia.”
“I said no,” she whispers, fierce and stunned and shaking.“He looked at me and I said no.”
I close my eyes.Jesus.“Yeah,” I say, throat thick.“You did.”
Aunt Dee materializes like divine retribution in slippers and an apron, muttering about skillets and buried bodies.I mouthlater.She presses her lips together and nods once, a commander dismissing herself from the field.
I lock the door behind us and guide Olivia down the hallway.Every step she takes steadies her a little more.By the time we’re in her room, the shaking isn’t fear anymore.
It’s energy and heat.Life roaring back in.
She wipes her cheeks with the heel of her hand and meets my eyes like she’s daring the world to try her again.
“You didn’t hit him,” she says quietly.
“No.”I drop onto the edge of the bed, still close enough to touch her if she needs it.“I wanted to.Badly.But you deserve clean wins, not court dates and bail hearings.”
Her mouth curves.Not quite a smile.Something more fragile and fiercer at the same time.“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not taking it from me,” she says.“For being there without speaking for me.”
That hits deeper than anything tonight.“Always,” I say, and I mean it in a way that terrifies me a little.
The air between us changes.Not destructive, not explosive.Transforming.Like metal in a forge, hot enough to bend into something new if we let it.
She swallows.“Darren.”
“Yeah?”
“Come here.”
I’m already standing before the words are finished.Her fingers curl into the front of my hoodie and haul me down to her, and then her mouth is on mine.
