"You don't know anything about my life now."
He pauses, and his expression shifts, becomes more intent.
"Don't I?"
My skin prickles. The quiet confidence in those two words sends ice through my chest.
What does that mean?
"We both know I'm not leaving, Firefly."
"Don't call me that." The words rip out before I can stop them, raw and furious.
He goes still, and an expression flickers across his face too fast to read.
Firefly.Like he still knows me. Like he has any right to that name, to the girl who used to light up when he said it. He killed her when he left. This version of me doesn't belong to him.
Now it feels like theft, like he's reaching for intimacy he surrendered twelve years ago when he walked away.
Something snaps.
Not my composure. I lost that the moment he walked through my door. Something deeper. The part of me that spent three years being told what I could and couldn't do in my own home. The part that learned to make herself smaller, quieter, invisible.
Not anymore.
"No." My voice drops low and cold. The courtroom voice. The one that makes defendants flinch. "I am a federal judge. If you don't leave my property in the next sixty seconds, I will call the police. Then the FBI field office. Then every contact I have in the justice system until Centurion Protection Group never gets another federal contract."
My hands aren't shaking anymore. My back is straight. Judge Castellano, fully armored.
His jaw tightens, but he doesn't speak.
"And before you tell me Uncle Sal will override that—" My voice cracks.
No. Hold it together.
"Sal answers to the family." I take a step toward him. "Iamthe family. The only Castellano of my generation. The only one who gave them a grandchild."
I take another step and am close enough to see his pupils dilate.
"So ask yourself." The words come out unguarded now, the judge receding, just Angelina left. "Who does Sal choose when it comes down to it?"
Basta.Enough.
His expression doesn't change, but something shifts behind his eyes. Calculation. Reassessment.
Good.See me. Not the college girlfriend you abandoned, and not the target you think needs protection. Me.
Neither of us moves. The kitchen clock ticks.
Finally, he moves. One step back, then another. His hands stay visible, unthreatening, but his eyes never leave mine.
"I'll be outside." His voice is flat, giving nothing away. "In my car. If you change your mind."
"I won't."
"If something happens—"
"It won't."