I squeeze Dad’s hand once more before hugging Linda and following Alicia into the hallway. The door closes with a soft click behind us, sealing the quiet.
Alicia stands beside me, arms wrapped lightly around herself. The fluorescent lighting softens against her hair, turning the dark strands warm.
I take her hand—her fingers are cold from the hospital’s low temperature—and lead her toward the elevators. The antiseptic smell finally fades as we move away from the cardiac wing. I blow out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
“Sorry about that.”
“Why?” she asks. “He adores you. That was obvious.”
“What he said to you?—”
“That I’ve captured your heart?” she finishes, voice soft but steady.
I rub a hand over my jaw. “I just don’t want you to feel pressured. He’s doped up. Sentimental.”
Her eyes lift to mine. Clear. Direct. No flinch. “There’s no place I’d rather be tonight. When the text came in, I didn’t even think. I just…went with you.” She swallows. “Which makes me wonder what we’re doing.”
I tighten my hold on her hand but slow our pace. “Alicia.”
“This is real, isn’t it?” Her voice drops to barely above a whisper, like she’s afraid to say it too loud.
There it is. The question I’ve been carrying in my chest, the one I’ve buried under duty and timing and the certainty that she could do better. That someone like her—fierce, accomplished, untouchable in so many ways—wouldn’t choose someone like me unless it was circumstance. Unless it was just proximity and adrenaline.
But the tremor in her voice tells me she’s as uncertain as I am. And somehow that makes it more real.
I look at her for a long moment—this woman who walked into a hospital in another state without hesitating, who held my father’s hand like she’d known him for years.
“It is from my side,” I say quietly.
Her gaze flickers down the hall, toward the life waiting back home, toward the storm she’s standing in the center of. To some, she might be simply looking down the long hospital hall, but I sense she’s seeing beyond the moment.
“Noah…maybe you should wait until the murder charges are dropped before you jump all in.”
That’s her hesitation? She’s not pulling back—she wants to protect me from the fallout. Something in my chest shifts. Of all the reasons I expected her to give, this wasn’t one of them.
I pull her closer, close enough that I can see the exhaustion shadowing her eyes, the tension she’s been holding in her jaw.
“I’m in. No matter what.” My thumb brushes across her knuckles. “And the case is weak. Whoever’s framing you—whoever’s behind this—they made mistakes. Jessica’s connection is huge. Our team will tear the rest apart. I’d bet everything the prosecution drops the charges before this sees the inside of a courtroom.”
Her eyes trace my face, something fragile and fierce merging there. “You’re not afraid?”
“Hell yeah, I’m scared.” I tighten my grip on her hand. “But not of the outcome of your case.”
She doesn’t move away. She doesn’t retreat. She just stands there, breathing the same thin hospital air I’m breathing, and it feels like something seismic is shifting beneath us.
A nurse walks by, smiling politely, and the spell softens but doesn’t break.
Alicia exhales—slow, deliberate, the way she does when she’s made a decision she’s not going to second-guess.
“So we’ll go back tonight,” she says finally. “Come back in the morning to relieve Linda?”
“I’ll come back and relieve Linda. You should head back in the morning. Stella needs you. And you’ve got enough on your plate.”
“Since everything’s okay, maybe so.” Her voice is quiet, but steady.
We enter the elevator in silence. The doors slide shut, sealing us in that small, fluorescent box. I keep hold of her hand, my thumb tracing absent circles on her palm. The numbers descend: 4...3...2... Each floor a reminder that we’re leaving the crisis behind, returning to the world where she’s facing charges and I’m her protection detail.
But in this moment, in this elevator, we’re just two people holding on.