Part of me feels stupid for how my body reacted in that moment at the gala. For how my heart tried to punch through my ribs.
She was small. Five-foot-something. Maybe a hundred and twenty pounds. I have at least eighty pounds on her. Probably more. I could bench her without warming up.
And yet?—
The flash of silver had felt enormous.
The intent behind it had felt enormous.
“I should have seen it sooner,” I say quietly.
Rafe turns toward me immediately. “Seen what?”
“That she wasn’t just angry. She was—” I struggle for the word. “Disconnected.”
Miles shakes his head. “You’re not a threat assessment unit, Ollie.”
I huff a breath that isn’t quite a laugh. “She’s tiny.”
“And she had a knife,” Rafe snaps, not at me, but at the thought. “Size doesn’t matter.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. But there’s something about the physical imbalance that makes me feel ridiculous. I’ve been hit harder on the court by guys built like trucks. I’ve played through dislocated fingers and torn ligaments. I’ve absorbed elbows that left bruises blooming for weeks.
And that slip of a woman with shaking hands nearly unraveled everything.
The memory surfaces again—her eyes locked on Rafe, not on me. The fury when I touched him.
“You don’t get to touch him.”
My stomach flips.
“It’s escalation,” Vinny says quietly. “Media validation feeds delusion. We treat it as such.”
Miles exhales slowly. “So we revisit the restraining order?”
Vinny nods. “Yes.”
Rafe’s hand never leaves mine. His thumb presses against my knuckles, reassuring and deliberate.
“We’re fine,” he says quietly, but there’s steel under it now. “You hear me? We’re fine.”
I nod, even though I don’t entirely know whatfinemeans anymore.
My chest feels tight, but it’s not panic. Not yet. It’s awareness. It’s standing at the edge of something and recognizing the ground is less stable than I thought.
I look down at my hands.
They’re steady.
Good.
Miles leans back, watching both of us like he’s evaluating a structural beam under pressure. “This is noise,” he says calmly. “Dangerous noise, but still noise. We adjust. We don’t retreat.”
Adjust. Don’t retreat.
I inhale slowly, letting that settle as we head back to my loft. The win still hums faintly in my bones, but it feels distant now. Less clean.
Rafe squeezes my hand once more before the car slows. “You sure you’re okay?” he asks again, quieter this time.
