He crosses to the window and checks sightlines. Every movement unhurried and exact, violence being plannedsomewhere behind those dark eyes. The air feels easier to breathe with him between me and the door.
"He's been in that courtroom every day for two weeks." Cole's voice is flat and operational. "Watching. Waiting. This was always coming."
"You knew?"
"I suspected." Something tightens in his face. "Diplomatic immunity, family money, connections in Salvencian courts. He has tools. I just didn't know when he'd use them."
My hands won't stop shaking. I press them flat against the desk and will them still. The wood grain is cool under my palms, real and solid and grounding. My father's desk, inherited when he couldn't remember what a desk was for anymore.
"He wants joint custody. He'll file internationally if I don't cooperate."
"He'll file anyway. This call wasn't negotiation." Cole turns from the window and faces me. "It was notification."
"So, what do I do?" The question tastes bitter. "Let him see her?"
"No." Flat, absolute, final.
Silence stretches. The antique clock on the bookshelf ticks away the seconds, too loud in the quiet. Cole's hand flexes at his side in a hypnotic rhythm, open and closed and open, detached from everything else about him. I should be frightened by that detachment. I might be, if I had room for more fear.
His eyes are dark, empty of everything except purpose.
"I could make this go away." His voice is quiet. "Permanently."
He's not asking, but offering. Like Adrian is just another threat to neutralize. Like it's that simple.
I took an oath. Sat through sentencing hearings for men who decided they had the right to end lives. Exposed Chesca to this world because I couldn't stomach the alternative.
Adrian drove recklessly enough to almost kill our daughter and walked away because of a diplomatic passport.
"Not yet."
The words leave my mouth before my brain catches up.
His expression shifts from surprise to satisfaction. It settles into his features like permission granted, like I've given him something he's been waiting years to receive.
And God help me, warmth blooms low in my belly. Even now, with terror still clawing at my chest.
"But not never." His eyes hold mine.
I don't answer because I don't need to.
We stand in it, this line we've just acknowledged. His eyes on mine, the clock ticking, neither of us moving. The silence has weight and density, the kind that compresses time until seconds feel structural.
I should be horrified. I'm a federal judge who took an oath to uphold the law, not circumvent it. I've sentenced men to prison for less than what I just implied.
Cole watches me work through it with the patience of someone who's been waiting for this moment, who knew it would come eventually.
"You're not horrified," he says.
"I should be."
"But you're not."
I meet his eyes. "No. I'm not."
Afternoon recess. Day ten of trial.
Adrian's chair sat empty through the entire session. I noticed and couldn't stop noticing, my stomach twisting tighter every time my eyes drifted to that vacant seat.