I already was one.
And maybe it was time I stopped fighting it.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Katrina
The house was dark when we pulled into the driveway.
I turned off the engine and sat there, hands gripping the steering wheel, knuckles white. The silence in the car was suffocating. Frankie hadn’t said a word since we left the clubhouse. She just sat in the passenger seat, staring out the window, hands folded tightly in her lap.
I wanted to say something. Wanted to reach over and hold her hand, tell her everything would be okay.
But I couldn’t.
Because I didn’t know if it would be.
“Let’s go inside,” I said quietly.
She nodded and opened the door without looking at me.
We walked up to the house in silence. I fumbled with my keys, hands shaking so badly that I dropped them twice before I finally got the door unlocked. Frankie slipped past me and headed straight for her room.
“Frankie—”
“I’m going to bed,” she said without turning around.
I watched her disappear down the hall, heard her bedroom door close softly behind her.
And then I was alone.
I stood in the entryway, coat still on, purse still hanging from my shoulder, and I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.
He beat his wife so badly she ended up in the hospital.
Zero’s words kept replaying in my head, over and over, like a song I couldn’t turn off.
I walked into the kitchen and set my purse down on the counter. Turning on the faucet, I splashed cold water on my face, gripping the edge of the sink as the water dripped down my chin.
What kind of man beats his wife?
The question circled in my mind, relentless and unforgiving.
I didn’t know the full story. I didn’t know what had happened between Derek and Sam. Why he’d hurt her. If he’d been arrested. If there had been consequences at all.
I didn’t know anything.
And that was the problem.
I’d let a man I barely knew into my life. Into Frankie’s life. Let him get close to her, let him become someone she trusted, someone she looked up to. I’d let myself feel things I had no business feeling.
And I hadn’t asked the right questions.
I hadn’t dug deep enough. Hadn’t protected us the way I should have.
Because I’d been too busy wanting him.
I turned off the faucet and stared at my reflection in the window above the sink. My face was pale, my eyes red-rimmed and hollow. I looked like a stranger.
