I pick up my phone. A number already lives in my contacts. An investigator who owes me his life and has never forgotten it.
My finger hovers. All it takes is one call.
Find her.
I stare at the screen until my eyes ache.
Then I set the phone back down.
Because the truth is simple, even when it’s brutal.
She chose to leave. She chose freedom.
And if I drag her back into my orbit through resources and leverage and quiet force, that isn’t care.
That’s possession.
That’s my father.
The memory comes sharp as broken glass. A door locking. My mother’s sob, caught behind wood. My father’s voice, low and satisfied. Telling her she couldn’t run from what belonged to him.
I close my eyes for half a second. When I open them, my hand has drifted toward my ear. The spot behind it throbs with tension like a heartbeat. I catch myself. Force my hand down onto the desk.
Stillness.
My father taught me that much.
But I’m not a boy anymore. And stillness isn’t the same thing as calm.
I look at the whiskey. I still don’t drink. I look at the receipt. I still don’t fold it away.
In three weeks, I have thought about her more than I’ve thought about anything personal in years. More than food. More than sleep. More than the things men pretend they don’t need.
I think about how she reached for me on the plane without thinking. How her hand locked on my wrist, like her instincts chose me before her mind could argue. How she breathed whenI told her to breathe. How she looked when I asked permission. Relief first. Then disbelief. Like no one had ever offered her control before.
For one night, I wasn’t a don. I wasn’t the Mancini chair that everyone wants to sit in.
I was just a man in a room with a woman who wanted to feel safe.
And I gave it to her.
Or I tried.
