My phone sits on the cracked bathroom counter where Tatiana must have placed it. Dead, but she’s left a charger. I plug it in and wait for the screen to light up.
Seventeen missed calls. Twenty-three texts. Most from Wyatt. Some from Nina. Two from my sister.
I can’t read them. Not yet. I open a new message to Nina instead.
I’m alive. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to come back from this.
I stare at the words. Delete them. Try again.
I’m sorry. I love you. Tell Wyatt I’m sorry.
I delete that too.
Tatiana’s voice in my head: She deserves more than a text.
I hit the call button before I can talk myself out of it.
She picks up on the first ring. “Chris.” My name comes out ragged, desperate with relief. “Oh god, Chris, where are you? Are you okay? Tatiana said she found you but she wouldn’t tell me where.”
“I’m okay.” The lie tastes sour. “I mean, I’m alive. I’m not hurt. Not seriously.”
“Where are you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.” Her voice shifts, the desperate relief hardening into something else. “It matters to Wyatt, who hasn’t slept. It matters to your sister, who’s been calling every hour. It matters to everyone who loves you and has been going out of their minds not knowing if you were safe.” She stops. Breathes. “Come home.”
“I can’t.”
“Chris—”
“I hurt him, Nina.” The words come out rough. “I became—something else. Someone he didn’t consent to being with. And I don’t know how to guarantee it won’t happen again. I don’t know how to be around either of you without being terrified of what I might do.”
Silence on the line. Her breathing is measured and deliberate. Therapist breathing. She’s trying to stay calm when she wants to scream.
“I talked to Wyatt,” she says finally. “I know what happened. And I know you’re scared. But staying away isn’t going to undo it. It just reinforces every fear you have about yourself—that you’re too dangerous to love, too damaged to be close to anyone. That’s not true.”
“How can you say that? You didn’t see what I did.”
“I saw the bruises on his neck.” Her voice is quiet now. “And I saw his face when he showed them to me. He’s not afraid of you, Chris. He’s afraid for you. There’s a difference.”
I don’t have an answer for that.
“Tell Wyatt—” My throat closes. I force the words through. “Tell him I’m sorry. Tell him I didn’t mean to become that. Tell him?—”
“Tell him yourself.”
“I can’t. Not yet.”
“He loves you, Chris. You know that, right? He’s not sitting in my guest room angry. He’s grieving. He thinks he pushed you too far, asked for something you weren’t ready to give, and broke something irreparable.”
“It wasn’t him. It was me.”
“Then tell him that. When you’re ready.” A pause. “But don’t make him wait too long.”
The silence stretches. In it, I hear everything I’m not saying. Every excuse, every rationalization, every way I’m already building walls to justify staying away.
“I need time,” I say finally. “I’m still working the op—the assassination contract on Vicente and Arturo is active, and there’s something else going on that doesn’t add up. I can do more good in the field right now than I can sitting around hating myself.”
