I try, but it comes out ragged and shallow.
"We need to go." His voice lands like an anchor. "Now."
I should go back to the bench. Finish the session. Be Judge Castellano—unshakeable, untouchable, above all of this.
But my legs won't carry me anywhere except where Cole leads. Through the back hallway, past the bailiffs who don't ask questions, into the elevator that descends toward the parking garage. His hand stays on my back the whole way, warm and steady and the only solid thing in a world that won't stop spinning.
He's really doing this. He's going to try to take her.
The elevator descends and my reflection stares back from the brushed steel doors. Mascara intact, blouse still pressed, not a hair out of place. Judge Castellano, perfectly composed, except for the petition crumpling in my fist.
Salvencian filing. Outside US jurisdiction. But he signed away parental rights in the divorce, California family court, domestic ruling, fully executed. The Hague Convention doesn't override a voluntary termination. His diplomatic status complicates enforcement but doesn't create standing where none exists. He'd need to establish...
The doors open onto the parking garage and Cole steers me toward the truck.
My hands are still shaking, but my brain is already building the counter-argument.
Not yet, I'd said. Like it was a promise. Like it was a countdown.
Maybe it was both.
twenty-three
Angelina
The tags are in the bathroom trash.
I stare at them through the mirror, three little rectangles of black cardstock buried under tissues. La Perla. Four hundred dollars I'll never admit to spending.
Adrian's custody petition sits on the nightstand in the other room, bristling with Post-its. Yellow for procedural flaws, pink for precedent cases that gut his argument, blue for the three motions I'll file Monday morning. I spent yesterday turning his power play into a case study in bad strategy. By the time I finished annotating, his filing looked like a first-year's moot court brief—full of ambition, empty of standing.
That was yesterday. Today I need to be something else.
Tonight, I'm standing in my bathroom in black lace.
Exhibit A in the case of Castellano v. Her Own Dignity.
The bra is architectural with underwire and silk and strategic gaps that frame more than they cover. The matching thong is barely there, a scrap of fabric that cost more per squareinch than my house. Against my skin, the black lace looks expensive and intentional.
The prosecution rests. Guilty on all counts.
My fingers find the St. Christopher medal at my throat. The one constant. The one thing I never take off, not even for this. Dad gave it to me before his mind started slipping away, back when he still remembered my name.
Who is this for?
The mirror doesn't answer, but I already know.
The scar cutting across my belly has faded to silver, the one Cole knelt before and called the place where I won. My hips are wider now, still carrying the soft proof of pregnancy. My thighs touch where they used to have a gap.
Adrian's voice slithers in, unwanted.You'd be beautiful if you tried harder.
My hands curl around the counter's edge.
He's not Adrian.
My hands relax.
But the knowledge I've been carrying since I noticed the burr missing from my pill pack sits heavier tonight. Yesterday he walked me out of that courthouse when my legs wouldn't work. Put himself between me and Adrian without hesitating. Held me in the car while I shook apart. And then he brought me home and didn't push. Didn't leverage it. Didn't ask for anything.