I stare out the window. Watch buildings blur past. Try not to think about what just happened.
I can't stop thinking about what just happened.I should call someone. My therapist. A priest. The police.
My thighs press together again. Still wet. Still wanting.
Definitely not Uncle Sal. He'd just be annoyed I didn't let him handle it first.
The almost-laugh catches in my throat. Comes out as something between a breath and a sob. Cole glances at me but doesn't say anything.
Good. What would I even tell him? "I think I might be broken in ways I didn't know about until I watched you beat my ex-husband bloody and realized it was the hot"?
Because I am fine with it.
That's the part I can't look at directly. The part that feels like staring at the sun.
Adrian is bleeding in my chambers right now. Maybe he's managed to drag himself up and he's calling his diplomatic contacts, threatening retaliation, spinning this into some story where he's the victim. His credentials are scattered across the floor with his blood, and I'm sitting here replaying every blow like highlights from a game I didn't know I wanted to win.
Nonna Rosa would be horrified.
Or maybe she wouldn't. She grew up in a world where men settled things with their hands and women pretended not to see. "La famiglia prima di tutto," she used to say. Family before everything.
Maybe I'm more like her than I ever wanted to admit.
The traffic light turns red. Cole stops. His knuckles crack again on the wheel.
I keep looking at his hands.
Those same hands held me like I was precious. Made me feel beautiful for the first time since—
Since Adrian.
My fingers move before I consciously decide to let them, reaching across the console, that small barrier between us that suddenly feels like miles.
I touch his right hand. The one that broke Adrian's nose. The one that split Adrian's lip. My fingertips trace the ridge of his knuckles, the torn skin, the dried blood caught in every crease and whorl.
He glances at me but doesn't speak. Doesn't pull away.
Neither do I.
The light turns green. He drives one-handed, and I keep my fingers on his damaged knuckles, feeling the small movements of tendons as he steers. Blood flakes off onto my skin.
I don't wipe it away.
The SUV turns onto my street, and my house appears at the end of the block—white porch, black door, the flowers Chesca and I planted in the spring still blooming in their neat rows.
He pulls into the driveway and kills the engine.
The silence between us is thick with everything we haven't said, heavy with the weight of what just happened and what might happen next.
I should go inside. Take a shower and process this like a rational human being. Journal about it, maybe. Schedule an emergency session with Dr. Peters. Do all the healthy, responsible things a functional adult is supposed to do when their worldview gets shattered.
My hand is still resting on his.
"Angelina—"
"Don't." I finally turn to look at him—really look at him. Blood drying to rust on his white shirt. More blood cracking across his hands. And his eyes, dark and patient and hungry in a way that makes my breath catch. "Don't apologize. Don't explain."
His jaw tightens, but he nods once.