10. Amanda
— ? —
Amanda
The cell is shrinking.
I can feel the walls pressing in, the concrete getting closer with every breath. The fluorescent light buzzes overhead - that endless, maddening hum that drilled into my skull for two years.
My mother stands outside the bars.
She’s wearing the dress from her funeral. The one I never saw because they wouldn’t let me go. Her face is gray, her eyes hollow, and she’s looking at me the way she looked at me in the courtroom.
Like I’m already dead.
“Mom-” I reach through the bars. “Mom, please. I didn’t do it. You have to believe me. I didn’t-”
She turns away.
“MOM!”
I’m screaming. I’m screaming and the walls are closing in and I can’t breathe and-
***
I wake up on the bathroom floor.
I don’t remember getting here. I don’t remember leaving Roman’s bed, walking down the hall, collapsing against the cold tile. But here I am - curled in a ball, shaking, my heart slamming against my ribs like it’s trying to escape.
The clock on the wall says 3:47 AM.
I try to stand. My legs won’t hold me.
I try to breathe. My lungs won’t cooperate.
I’m back in the cell. I’m always back in the cell.
Two years of concrete and fluorescent lights and the slow erosion of everything I used to be - it lives in my body now.
It lives in the way I flinch at small spaces, the way I can’t sleep without dreaming of bars, the way I sometimes forget that I’m free.
Free.
The word feels like a lie.
“Amanda?”
Roman’s voice, from the hallway. Footsteps.
I should answer. I should tell him I’m fine. I should pull myself together like I’ve pulled myself together a thousand times before.
I can’t.
The bathroom door opens.
“Jesus - Amanda-”
He’s beside me in an instant. Kneeling on the cold tile, his hands on my face, my shoulders, checking for injuries that aren’t there.
“I’m okay,” I manage. “I’m okay. I just-”
“You’re not okay.” He pulls me into his arms. “You’re shaking. You’re ice cold. What happened?”
“Nightmare.” The word comes out broken. “Just a nightmare.”
“The prison?”
I nod against his chest.
“Your mother?”
I nod again.
He doesn’t ask any more questions. He just holds me, there on the bathroom floor, while I shake apart in his arms.
“Come on.” He shifts, starts to stand. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
“I can’t.” The panic rises again. “I can’t go back to sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I’m there. I’m in that cell, and she’s looking at me like-”
“Okay.” He settles back down. “Okay. Then we stay here.”
“Roman-”
“I’m not leaving you.” His arms tighten around me. “Whatever you need. However long it takes. I’m not going anywhere.”
I press my face into his shoulder and cry.
***
I don’t know how long we stay there.
Long enough for the shaking to slow. Long enough for my breathing to even out. Long enough for the worst of the panic to recede, leaving me hollow and exhausted and raw.
“The shower,” I say finally.
“What?”
“Can you-” I swallow. “The cold. I need the cold. It helps. In prison, when I couldn’t - when the walls got too close - I would stand under cold water until I could feel my body again.”
Roman doesn’t ask questions.
He just stands, reaches into the shower, and turns on the water.
Cold. Ice cold.
Then he steps in.
Fully clothed. Jeans, t-shirt, bare feet. He steps under the freezing spray without hesitation and holds out his hand.
“Come here.”
***
The water is a shock.
It steals my breath, makes my skin prickle, forces me out of my head and back into my body. I gasp, and Roman pulls me against him, and we stand there together under the freezing water while it soaks through our clothes and pools around our feet.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs against my hair. “You’re safe. You’re never going back there. I won’t let them take you again.”
“What if I’m broken?” The words spill out before I can stop them. “What if prison broke something in me that can’t be fixed? What if I’m always going to be like this - waking up on bathroom floors, dreaming about cells, flinching every time-”
“Then you’re broken.” His voice is steady. Certain. “And I’ll love you anyway.”
“Roman-”
“I didn’t fall in love with the woman you were before.
I fell in love with you. All of you. The strength and the damage and the fight and the fear.
” He tips my chin up. Water streams down his face, plastering his hair to his forehead.
“You survived two years in hell for a crime you didn’t commit.
You walked out of those gates and decided to take down the people who put you there.
That’s not broken, Amanda. That’s extraordinary. ”
I kiss him.
It’s different from before. Softer. Desperate in a different way - not hunger, but need. The need to feel something other than fear. The need to be held by someone who sees all of me and stays anyway.
He kisses me back, gentle and fierce at once, and the cold water washes over us, and for one moment - just one - I’m not in the cell anymore.
I’m here.
I’m alive.
I’m loved.
***
We stay in the shower until we’re both shivering.
Then Roman turns off the water, wraps me in the biggest towel he can find, and carries me back to bed. We strip out of our wet clothes, burrow under the covers, and hold each other while the warmth slowly returns.
“We need to end this,” I say quietly. “Before Sunday. I can’t - I can’t live like this anymore. Waiting. Hiding. Dreaming about cells.”
“We will.”
“I need to face him. Julian. One more time.” I press my palm against Roman’s chest, feel his heartbeat under my fingers. “I need to hear him say it. I need him to admit what he did, on the record, so there’s no way he can wriggle out of it.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“Everything about this is dangerous.”
“Amanda-”
“He thinks he’s already won. That’s his weakness - his arrogance. If I can get him talking, get him to gloat, he’ll say things he shouldn’t. He always does.” I look up at Roman. “I can get him on tape. I know I can.”
Roman doesn’t answer right away.
“I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it.”
“If something goes wrong-”
“Then you’ll be there. Backup. Close enough to help if I need it.” I tip his chin up to meet my eyes. “I’m not asking for permission. I’m telling you what I need to do.”
He closes his eyes. Takes a breath.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I trust you.” He opens his eyes. Meets mine. “I trust your judgment. I trust your strength. If you say you can do this, I believe you.”
***
His phone buzzes on the nightstand.
We both freeze.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“Almost five.” Roman reaches for the phone. Checks the screen.
His face goes pale.
“What?” I sit up. “Roman, what is it?”
“It’s David.” His voice is hollow. “Our witness.”
“What about him?”
Roman hands me the phone.
The text is simple. Seven words.
I can’t testify. Don’t contact me again.
“No.” I’m out of bed before I know I’m moving. “No, no, no-”
“Amanda-”
“They got to him.” I’m pacing now, the towel forgotten, the cold air biting at my bare skin. “Julian’s people got to him. Scared him off, paid him off, threatened his family-”
“His sworn statement is still on record. It’s enough to keep your conviction vacated. But without him testifying in open court, the criminal case against Julian...” Roman shakes his head. “It’s not over. But it just got harder.”
Roman’s phone buzzes again.
Different number this time.
He answers. Listens. His face goes even paler.
“What?” I demand. “Roman, what-”
He hangs up.
“That was Vivienne. Julian knows she talked to you. Someone saw you leave her building, reported back to him.” Roman is already moving, grabbing clothes, throwing mine across the bed. “She says he’s moved up the timeline. The jet isn’t Sunday anymore.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow night.”
Tomorrow.
That’s one day.
One day to get evidence. One day to stop him. One day before Julian Vance disappears forever and I lose any chance of justice.
“The other witnesses,” I say. “The ones who came forward after David-”
“If Julian scared off David, he’s already working on them.” Roman pulls on his jeans. “We can’t count on testimony anymore. We need something physical. Something undeniable.”
“What about everything you already have?” I ask. “Your files. The confession he signed.”
“Fifteen years of old scandals, and a piece of paper he signed under threat - witnessed by the family outcast. His lawyers would shred it all in an hour. It makes him toxic. It doesn’t make him guilty. For that, we need his own voice. Unforced.”
“And the box?”
“With his confession on tape, the DA can get a warrant. We won’t need his key - we’ll need him in handcuffs.”
The recording.
Tomorrow.
“Then we move today.” I grab my clothes. Start dressing. My hands are shaking again, but this time it’s not fear.
It’s rage.
“Roman.”
He looks at me.
“I’m going to destroy him,” I say. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to watch him lose everything. The way he watched me lose everything.”
“I know you will.”
“Are you with me?”
He crosses the room. Takes my face in his hands. Kisses me once - hard, fierce, a promise.
“Always.”