"Popcorn is a different food group, munchkin. Everyone knows that. And in case you haven't noticed, I eat a lot." Chesca's giggle floats through the house.
Angelina laughs. The sound settles into my bones like something I've been waiting seven years to hear.
This. This is what I've been watching for. Waiting for. Working toward.
And I'm not letting it go.
seventeen
Angelina
Ipull the last pin from my hair as I push open my chamber door, already mentally making a note of everything I need to do before I can go home to Chesca. Three hours of seeing DeLuca's smirk and watching him sit there like he owned the courtroom while his lawyers tap-danced around evidence that should bury him is exhausting.
Five minutes. I just need five minutes without someone watching me.
Cole is outside. I asked him to wait, because after three hours of that circus, I needed to breathe without an audience. Even a protective one.
20 days.The countdown pulses beneath everything now. Every ruling, every motion, every step through this building where someone left a flower on my desk. Two threats circling. One faceless. One—
"Hello, Angelina. You look tired, cara."
The pins scatter across the floor.
No.
Adrian is sitting behind my desk. In my chair. Like he belongs there.
My body knows before my brain catches up. Everything narrows, the room shrinking to just him, sitting in my space, wearing that smile I used to think was charming before I learned what lived underneath it.
Move. Scream. Do something.
I can't.
Dio, not this. Not here. Not now.
Everything in me screamingrun. But I'm a federal judge in my own chambers. I don't run.
"Get out of my chair."
He doesn't move. "I just want to talk."
He leans back like he owns the space. Like he owns everything. "About Francesca."
"Her name doesn't belong in your mouth."
"She's my daughter too. Legally, I have rights."
He stands and moves around the desk with that deliberate grace he always had. I know this dance. The slow approach, each step calculated to make me feel smaller and to remind me there's nowhere to go.
The door is closed behind me, for privacy like I always do. Now that habit feels like a cage.
Move. Move, Angelina. You're a federal judge. You've sentenced men twice his size.
But the old programming kicks in before I can override it. Stay still. Don't provoke.
"I've been thinking." He trails his fingers along the edge of my desk, then picks up my pen. Examines it like it's interesting and puts it down in the wrong place, Deliberately wrong, because he knows I'll notice and it will burrow under my skin like a splinter. "Eight years is a long time. Maybe I was... hasty. Leaving."
My nails cut into my palms. "You didn't leave. You were removed."