He was beside me in two strides, crouching in front of me, hands hovering like he wanted to touch me but wasn’t sure if he had the right.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded. “Did he touch you—did he?—”
“I’m fine,” I whispered, even though fine was absolutely the last thing I was. “I’m okay. I just… I didn’t know where I was. And he?—”
My voice crumbled.
Alex’s expression twisted. Not anger—something closer to anguish.
“Jesus,” he breathed. “I shouldn’t have let you walk away. I should’ve followed you. I—fucking hell?—”
His hand finally closed around mine, warm and firm and grounding. I let him pull me up, my legs unsteady.
“Come here,” he murmured, and before I could protest he pulled me into his chest.
Despite everything, maybe because of the exhausting adrenaline I was becoming too used to these days, I sank into him, fingersclutching the back of his jacket like he was the last solid thing in the world.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Just breathing. Just existing in the same space, heartbeat to heartbeat.
Then he pulled back slightly, his thumb brushing the corner of my eye where tears still clung.
“Why did you run off?” he asked quietly.
I stiffened.
There it was—the anger. The scolding. The promise of consequences in his tone. Heat prickled up my neck.
“I needed space,” I muttered. “You—you hurt me. And I didn’t want to cry in front of you.”
His jaw tightened. But not with irritation.
With guilt.
“Frankie…” He exhaled slowly, looking away for a moment like gathering the courage to say the next part. “What I said back there—it was cruel. I knew it the second it left my mouth.”
“You keep pushing,” I said helplessly, wanting to cry again but fighting it. “Pushing me. Away, that is.”
He was quiet, then nodded. He didn’t meet my eyes. “I don’t know why I do that. Why I push you away. Why I hurt you when I?—”
He stopped himself.
When he what?
His eyes lifted to mine, stark and vulnerable in a way that made my breath catch.
“I’m not good with…affection,” he said quietly. “Kindness. I grew up in a house where weakness got punished, not cared for. People in the Antonov family, the one I was born into…they’re not even like the Buteras. They don’t love each other—they keep score. So when you look at me like you trust me, like I’m someone worth…anything…I don’t know what to do with it.”
My heart twisted.
“You didn’t have to be mean,” I whispered.
“I know.” His voice was steady as the solid ice of his eyes, but it was no less sincere for it. “And I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
That was a new, unsurprising thing I learned about Alex—when he apologized, it wasn’t flowery or dramatic. It was raw. Teeth-bared. Real. And somehow, that sincerity was so much more disarming.
He lifted my hand and pressed it to his chest, over his racing heart.
“Please don’t run from me again,” he said, softer. “Punish me, scream at me, anything—just don’t disappear.”
