Page 54 of Freedom’s Inferno

What was new was how the nightmare ended, with Charlie’s face hovering over mine, his hand at my throat, his eyes full of grief and fury tangled together.

I pressed my palm to my sternum as if I could calm the pounding beneath it. The nightmare still clung to me like cellophane, invisible and suffocating. It didn’t matter how many times I told myself it wasn’t real; my body didn’t seem to know the difference. I don’t know what unsettled me more, the dream itself or how I’d unraveled in Charlie’s arms afterward.

God, I’d let him hold me while I wept, my tears soaking into his bare chest. He’d stayed. He could have gone back to his room, back to the safety of his solitude, but he didn’t. I didn’t wake until mid-morning, my cheek pressed to his chest, the soft rhythm of his heart beneath my ear. For a moment, I’d forgotten who he was, what we were. I’d only felt safe. Safe and warm and… wanted.

I squeezed my eyes shut against the memory of the heat of his breath, the way our mouths found each other like gravity itself had decided we were overdue for collision. That kiss had been wildfire, hungry and unthinking. His weight over me, his hand sliding up my thigh, the air charged and thick—until it wasn’t.

Until his fingers brushed over my scar.

Absently, I let my own fingers trail over the D-shaped ridge of skin, a grotesque reminder of cruelty I would wear for the rest of my life.

Richard had thrown one of his sprawling summer parties: lavish, performative, and exhausting. The kind that existed solely to polish his ego under the pretense of generosity.

A rented white tent had swallowed half the backyard, glowing from within like some enormous lantern against the dark. Strings of golden lights looped from pole to pole, glinting off champagne flutes and sequined dresses.

My heels sank into the grass with every step, and the air buzzed with catered excess. I remembered weaving through clusters of investors and their trophy wives, the murmur of polite laughter rising and falling.

Richard basked in it all, every handshake and congratulatory pat on the back, the golden boy in his natural habitat.

I had stood near the far edge of the tent, speaking with an investor whose patience we were dangerously close to losing. He’d been reluctant, skeptical about the return rate on his assets, and I’d been doing what I always did, patching the holes Richard’s charm couldn’t fill. Leaning in, smiling just enough, keeping my voice even and persuasive.

I thought I was saving him.

Richard thought I was flirting.

Even as I tried to shut my eyes and focus on the steam that enveloped me in the shower, I could hear the sharpness in Richard’s voice when he came up behind me later that night, the slur of liquor twisting every word into something ugly.

He didn’t see the tension in the conversation or the desperation in my smile. He only noticed that I let another man look at me too long, and that was all it took. He’d held me over the seat to the baby grand and carved a crude rendering of his initial into my thigh with a dinner knife.

My stomach twisted as I recalled the moment Charlie found it. That single, awful second stretched forever. The way he’d stilled, the way his eyes darkened—not with desire, but with something closer to rage. His fury didn’t frighten me. It broke something open inside me.

I pressed both palms to my face and exhaled. That scar was my body’s permanent confession of everything I’d let Dick take from me. Humiliation wasn’t the only thing that burned through me. Shame scorched hotter. Not for what Richard had done, but for how small it made me feel even still.

Charlie had seen it.

I could only imagine what he must think of me now, damaged goods, broken and weak, some pitiful creature defined by the violence I’d survived. I hated that thought more than anything, and I hated that it mattered.

I wanted him. I wanted the man who saw through my masks and still didn’t look away. I wanted the quiet in his voice when he wasn’t trying to win an argument, the steady calm he carried like a weapon. I wanted the way he made me feel, not fragile, not breakable, but something to be feared. Maybe even revered. We were both broken. Maybe that was why we kept crashing into each other, two storms circling the same center.

I twisted the faucet off and reached for a towel, wrapping it around myself. I didn’t know how to reconcile it all. The dream, the fear, the tenderness of him holding me when I woke, the heat of him over me. My mind kept looping through it in fragments that wouldn’t line up: the safety, the want, the humiliation, the ache.

I dragged my fingers through my hair, untangling the wet knots as I listened to the muffled sounds of him moving in the other room. A drawer opening, the faint clink of a mug against the counter. Ordinary sounds in an extraordinary world.

The world steadied as the steam cleared. The past sat heavy on my shoulders. It always would. But my feet stayed planted. I didn’t flinch anymore.

I stepped out of the bathroom, wrapping a towel around my hair and another around my body until I could pull on my clothes. The skirt was a little too tight, the blouse too formal for a morning that already felt heavy, but control came easier when I looked the part. My armor had always been pressed fabric and poise.

Charlie sat in the living area, exactly where I expected he’d be, half-slouched on the couch, boots crossed at the ankle, a mug in one hand and Dante’s Inferno open in the other. His hair was still damp from a shower of his own, curling a little at the nape. He’d left a second mug on the coffee table beside a folded napkin and my phone. Coffee for me.

Somehow that small consideration caught me off guard.

“Shouldn’t you be reading a book about money laundering?” I asked, crossing to the table and picking up the mug.

He glanced up over the rim of his cup, the corner of his mouth curving. “Dante was falsely accused of financial corruption and exiled from Florence. Technically, I’m staying on theme.”

I smiled despite myself, sinking into the armchair opposite him. The coffee was black. Hot. Real. I couldn’t remember the last time someone made me a cup without asking for something in return. I glanced back at Charlie, at what he was wearing, and my face soured. Jeans, T-shirt, and a flannel that looked soft from too many washings.

“That’s really what you’re wearing?” I asked, sipping my coffee. “We’re going to the bank.”