Her gaze falls to the photograph first. Her round features sharpen as she recognizes herself and the implications of someone capturing this image without her knowledge. Then she reads the card, her lips moving silently over the words until she reaches the end.
“‘I took your son from the inside out. She’s next’,” she reads aloud. Her brows knit and she glances up at me with confusion and fear flickering back into her expression. “Jin, what does this mean? From the inside out? I don’t understand?—”
“Neither do I.” I step closer, without care if I’m invading her personal space. “Tell me what happened last night. The visitors he’s referring to. What is he talking about, Monroe?”
She hesitates, biting down on her bottom lip. She’s weighing whether to tell me and what letting me back into the parts of her life would mean.
Finally, she exhales. “Five men broke in last night. They were masked. They attacked me and my mother.”
Like when I received the envelope from Black Shell earlier, it takes me a second to catch up with the development.
My muscles tense as it sinks in what she’s said.
Attacked. Five men. Broke in.
“You were attacked,” I repeat, my voice dangerously flat. “Here. In this apartment. And you didn’t think to tell me the moment it happened?”
“We handled it,” she answers defiantly, lifting her chin. “We fought them off and they ran. The police showed up not too long after, but they were already gone. We’re fine.”
“You’re fine.” I take yet another step closer, now studying her as intently as I had Do-gil in my office. Except the purpose is different. I’m taking inventory of my rabbit, searching for clues and the slightest tells. It’s as my gaze settles on her mouth that I spot the cut on the corner of her lip. Evidence of violence she endured.
Before I can stop myself, I’m reaching for her. My hand cups her jaw and tilts her face toward mine so I can examine the damage. The touch is possessive and tender all at once, an echo of a thousand intimate moments we shared before everything fell apart.
“Thisis fine?” I growl, my thumb brushing dangerously close to the cut on her lip. “This is what ‘handled it’ looks like?!”
Monroe wrenches herself from my grip, her misty eyes not as resilient as the rest of her. “I told you. We fought them off. I’m… okay.”
But she’s not okay. She’s being hunted by the same monster who slaughtered my family thirty years ago. The same fucking faceless specter who’s been circling us for months and somehow claims to have taken our son from us in a way I still don’t understand.
From the inside out.
The words chill me to my core, though I remain as stoic as ever on the outside.
“You’re moving back in with me,” I say matter-of-factly. “You and your mother. Tonight. You will remain with me until this threat is handled.”
Monroe shakes her head. “I’m not doing that. I’m not moving back in with you.”
“I wasn’t asking. This isn’t about us,” I press, though weboth know that’s a lie. “This is about keeping you safe. Black Shell is escalating. He’s not going to stop until?—”
“We’re leaving,” she cuts me off. “My mom and me. We’re moving back to Philly next week. Our lease is almost up, and there’s nothing keeping us here anymore.”
The news renders me speechless for seconds to come. It feels like a blade jammed between my ribs as I draw a breath and find it exceedingly difficult.
It’s a development I wasn’t anticipating, and I pride myself on such things.
Monroe’s not simply living apart from me, a few neighborhoods away where I can still watch over her. She’s leaving thecountry.
Going halfway around the world. Putting an ocean between us and calling it closure.
She’s leavingme. For good this time.
What’s left of my cold dead heart demands I fight for her. I speak up now and do what I never do—beg her to stay. Tell her I love her and I’m profoundly sorry for how I’ve pushed her away and made her feel so lost and alone in the wake of our tragedy.
Make her somehow understand I’ll do anything to make things right. Anything so not to lose her.
I need her.
But the words lodge in my throat, refusing to come out the way they should. They die before I can ever speak them as the facade I’ve put up remains, and I fail to tell the woman I love what’s truly on my mind.
