Because I know my world. I know how men like that move. I know how damage spreads when enemies can’t reach you directly.
She looks away. “I just want to go home.”
I nod once. “You will.”
The car pulls up a minute later, black and silent. My driver steps out, opening the rear door without a word. Good man. Knows when silence is the better option.
Zatanna takes one step toward it, then stops and turns back to me. Her face is pale, drained, but there’s still something searching in her eyes. Confusion. Hurt. Questions she can’t even frame yet.
For a second I think she’ll ask again, Who are you?
Instead she just says, “Thank you.”
The gratitude makes me feel worse, not better.
I incline my head. “Call me when you get home.”
She hesitates, then gets into the car.
I close the door gently behind her.
As the sedan pulls away, I stand there in the road and watch until the taillights disappear completely.
Only then do I turn back to the wreckage of the night, jaw tight, blood cold, guilt settling into something much more dangerous.
Someone came for her.
And I almost lost her before I’d even figured out what she is to me.
By the time I get home, I’ve made the decision.
I need to stay away from her.
Not because I want to. Not because it’s easy. Not because any part of me believes distance will make me want her less. But because last night made one thing painfully clear: anyone tied to me becomes a target.
And Zatanna is already too exposed.
So the next morning, I do what I should have done from the start.
I ignore her.
It starts the moment I walk onto the floor. Her desk is in my line of sight, as always. She’s already there, too, sitting stiffly with a coffee in both hands, like she didn’t sleep much. Her eyes flick up the second I appear.
Our gazes meet.
Something in her face shifts—some quiet, involuntary softening, like part of her is relieved to see me alive and standing and real after last night.
I kill that look immediately by walking past her as if she’s any other employee on the floor.
I don’t slow down. I don’t say good morning. I don’t let my eyes linger.
The silence behind me feels heavier than if I’d shouted.
I have to let her be angry. Confused. Offended.
Anger is safer than attachment.
I keep moving, heading straight for my office, aware of every set of eyes on the floor trying not to follow the tension crackling behind me. The door closes with a soft click, but it doesn’t seal out the awareness of her. It never does.
