Now he's the one who hired me.
"You're the one Kade sent?"
"Cole Tanaka."
His handshake is firm, testing pressure against my grip. I return exactly equal force, neither dominant nor submissive, simply present. An assessment passed.
He steps aside, gestures me inward.
I cross the threshold.
Finally. Yatto.
The word surfaces in Japanese before I can stop it, the language of emotion breaking through the English of professional control. Seven years of watching through windows, and now I aminside.
The warmth hits me first. Not just temperature but the presence. The house smells like garlic and rosemary from dinner, coffee from a pot she probably made hours ago, and underneath it something floral. Her shampoo, maybe. Her lotion. The scent of a space she has made her own.
I have imagined this so many times. Lying awake at night, I invented the details my cameras could not capture—the texture of her couch cushions, the titles on her bookshelves, the photographs on her walls. I constructed an interior life for her from fragments and guesses and the desperate hunger of a man who gave up his right to know her but could not make himself stop wanting to.
The reality is different. Better.More.
The hardwood floors gleam under soft lighting, worn in paths that map her daily movements. The chair where I watched her read an hour ago sits in the living room, a blanket bunched next to it, the pillow still holding the impression of her body. The lamp casts the same warm glow I know from the monitors, but here it feels alive, present, welcoming in a way digital light never is.
Family photographs line the walls. Angelina and Chesca building a life in images. Birthdays, holidays, ordinary momentsmade permanent. No photos of a man who might be Chesca's father. No evidence of anyone else sharing this space.
Good,something dark whispers in my chest.Mine.
Salvatore is saying something about the threat assessment, about the pattern Vanessa flagged. I hear him with the part of my brain that handles operational details, noting the information for later analysis.
The rest of me is looking for her.
And then, there she is.
She stands near the fireplace, arms crossed, posture defensive. Jeans and a cream sweater, dark hair falling over one shoulder, feet bare against the hardwood.
The world stops.
The monitors gave me shape and movement, light and shadow, the broad strokes of her existence. But they never gave me the way she holds herself, the steel in her back, the wariness in her shoulders, the fierce protectiveness radiating from every line of her body.
She is more beautiful in three dimensions. Fuller. Realer. The soft parts of her I remember from college have hardened into something stronger, something forged by whatever fire she has walked through in the twelve years since I left.
I want to cross the room and touch her. I want to fall at her feet and beg forgiveness for leaving. I want to tell her I have been watching, protecting, waiting, and that she was never as alone as she believed.
I do none of these things.
Yatto.Finally.
Salvatore is still talking. Introductions. Protocol. The words wash over me without landing.
She turns. Our eyes meet.
Color drains from her face like water from a broken vessel. Her breath catches. I hear the sharp intake, see her ribs lock beneath the soft sweater, watch her body go rigid with shock.
The gold flecks in her brown eyes flash with recognition. Fear. Fury. Something else underneath that I cannot name but want desperately to understand.
She remembers. Ofcourse,she remembers. Did you think twelve years would erase what we were?
I hold her stare. Do not blink. Do not look away first. Let her see that I am here, that I am real, that whatever comes next begins now.
