Chapter 8
Nikolai
I turned onto a quieter street; the kind lined with tall trees and too many speed bumps. The sun hung low, bleeding gold across the windshield. In the seat beside me, Mina curled up like she owned the car—legs tucked under her, cone in hand, sugar high in full effect.
“Okay, so sprinkles are texture, not just decoration,” she said, absolutely serious. She waved her ice cream like it was a scepter of truth, and a few sprinkles bounced off her lap. “You can’t just throw them on and call it a day. They add crunch. Crunch is essential.”
I said nothing, just glanced sideways—once, then again. Her eyes were brighter than I’d seen them since she walked out of that apartment. Brighter than she probably realized. She wasn’t guarded now. She wasn’t waiting for a fight. She was just… talking.
“And cookie dough?” she continued, licking a drip before it hit her fingers. “That’s love. That’s literal love language stuff. Someone hands you warm, homemade cookies? That’s deeper than saying it out loud.”
Her hands moved with her words, full of drama and conviction. Like all of this really mattered. And in a strange way, it did—because it had her smiling. That alone made it sacred.
I didn’t interrupt. Didn’t joke. Just let her speak.
She talked about store-bought cookies being relationship red flags, about how icing was a trust exercise, and somewhere in all of it, I realized I’d stopped thinking about the road.
I was still driving, but my attention had shifted entirely to her—to the sound of her voice, the rise and fall of her excitement.
The way the corners of her mouth curled between thoughts.
I’d seen her silent. I’d seen her scared. I’d seen her burn.
This version of her—unfiltered joy, melted chocolate on her fingers, feet kicked up in my car—it was new. Unexpected. And I didn’t want it to end.
So I kept driving. And I listened.
And I wondered—what broke her before all this?
Because whoever it was, they didn’t deserve the sound of her laughter. Not even close.
She talked, and I let her. Something about sugar ratios and how grocery store cookies were emotional crimes, and I just listened—really listened.
Her voice was lighter than before. The tension that usually lived in her shoulders had eased, her arms loose, hands dancing in the air with every ridiculous claim she made about the superiority of waffle cones.
And for the first time in weeks—maybe months—I felt something inside me let go. Just a little. Enough to breathe.
She was laughing. She was happy. And I could’ve killed the man who tried to take that from her.
Then it happened.
Her fingers slipped.
The cone tumbled from her hand in slow motion, a lopsided, sugary missile headed straight for the leather seat. I reached without thinking—but not fast enough. It splattered. White and sticky, smearing across the dark upholstery like some kind of insult.
She went still.
And then she broke.
“Oh gosh,” she whispered, voice already shaking. Her hands flew to her face. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to! Please don’t be mad! I'll… I'll fix it. I promise."
Tears welled, fast and hot, spilling down her cheeks in silent panic. She reached for the mess and smeared it more, trying to clean it with nothing but desperation and a napkin that wouldn’t hold up.
“I’ll pay to get it cleaned, I swear. Just—don’t be mad at me.”
It was a mess. A nothing accident. But the way she was falling apart told me everything I needed to know.
“Freckles,” I said, my voice low, calm—but I was anything but calm inside.
“I’ll fix it—I’ll fix it,” she hiccuped. “I didn’t mean—”
“Stop.”
That one word, solid and sharp, quieted her instantly. She froze, fingers trembling, eyes still wide and wild.
“Look at me,” I said, softer now. Not a command—an anchor.
Her gaze met mine, and it nearly shattered me. Not because of the tears. But because of the fear behind them.
“This doesn’t matter,” I said, nodding toward the ice cream. “It’s just a seat.”
But deep down, I knew what this was really about.
And I was going to find out exactly how deep Mikel’s damage went.
I pulled over, smooth and silent, the tires whispering against the pavement. Shifted the car into park. The engine hummed beneath us, the only sound in a street gone utterly still—like the world knew to hold its breath.
“It’s just ice cream,” I said, keeping my voice even. Controlled. “You don’t need to cry over an accident.”
But inside? I was anything but calm.
That reaction wasn’t about a mess on leather. It wasn’t about sugar. It was fear—trained fear. The kind that didn’t come from one bad day. It came from repetition. From knowing exactly what happened when something broke, spilled, or made noise.
She wouldn’t meet my eyes. Looked out the window instead, like if she stared hard enough, she could disappear into the glass. Her fingers clenched around the useless napkin she’d used to wipe the seat, still trembling. Still apologizing, even in silence.
My jaw clenched.
I thought back to the locker room—how Mikel had looked when he thought no one else could see. That flash of fury. The lift of his hand. The way his posture changed, not like he was bracing for a fight… but delivering punishment.
Not impulsive. Practiced.
“Mina.” I kept my tone quiet, almost soft. Enough to steady, not startle. “Look at me.”
She turned slowly, reluctantly, but she did. Her eyes were wide and glassy. Waiting for judgment. For a consequence.
And it made something dark curl in my chest.
“You can spill ice cream all over this car. I don’t care.” I held her gaze. “It doesn’t change who you are. Or how I see you.”
She blinked. Just once. That flicker of confusion—like she didn’t understand how someone could be calm after a mistake.
Whatever Mikel had done, it went deeper than words. Yelling. Name-calling. Throwing things. I knew the signs. And yesterday… yesterday had crossed a line.
“Whatever happened before,” I said slowly, carefully, “doesn’t get to decide how you’re treated now.”
I didn’t reach for her. Not yet. She was still too tense, too raw.
But I meant every word. And I’d say it again and again until she believed it. Until she realized she wasn’t here because I wanted to win a bet.
She was here because I didn’t want anyone ever lifting their hand to her again.
My hands stayed on the wheel, but I wasn’t driving anymore. The engine still hummed, but the world outside had fallen away. My voice was low. Controlled.
“Has he ever touched you?”
Mina froze.
Her spine stiffened just slightly, and her gaze jerked to the window like she could outrun the question. “Who? Mikel?” Her tone was light. Too light. Like she was trying to pretend she didn’t understand.
I didn’t press. Just waited.
Silence stretched between us—not empty, but full. Loaded. I let it hang. She’d answer when she was ready.
Finally, barely audible: “Not like that.”
“Mina.” I said her name quietly, but there was steel beneath it. I needed her to hear it. To come back from wherever she’d drifted.
She didn’t look at me, but I watched the way her shoulders rose and fell with each breath, like she was carrying too much and didn’t know how to set it down.
“He hasn’t,” she murmured. “He yells. He throws things. He says awful stuff sometimes. But he never…”
“Did you think that was normal?” I asked. My tone didn’t shift. I wasn’t accusing her—I just needed to know how deep the damage went. “What he did? That wasn’t frustration. That wasn’t a mistake. That was control.”
Her brow furrowed. Like the idea itself was foreign. “He gets competitive,” she said. “Frustrated. He’s just… like that.”
“No,” I said, firm. “Frustration doesn’t come with raised hands or broken things.”
She looked down at her lap. Her hands were clenched in her hoodie sleeves. She looked small. She wasn’t.
“I didn’t want to see it,” she whispered. “It felt easier not to.”
I nodded once. Not at her, but at the truth in that. “That’s how people like him win. They make silence feel safer than standing up.”
She didn’t respond. Just bit her lip, hard, like it would stop the tears from coming again.
“I didn’t think he’d ever cross that line,” she said, quieter now.
“You didn’t think,” I said, and I heard the bite in my voice too late. It wasn’t meant for her—it was meant for him.
“I thought he cared about me,” she snapped suddenly, and it was sharp, alive—herself pushing back.
Good.
“He says he cares,” I said. “But how do you feel when you’re with him? Safe? Heard? Or like you’re walking on broken glass barefoot every time he walks into a room?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
The silence that followed wasn’t the heavy kind anymore.
It was the kind that came after truth.
"He hasn't crossed a line," she said.
“Until yesterday,” I said before I could stop myself.
It came out flat. Factual. The truth. She shook her head, like she could physically toss the emotion off her shoulders.
“Look, it doesn’t matter,” she muttered.
“I’m not—” her voice cracked slightly, but she pushed through.
“I’m not going back to him. I’m not that stupid. ”
I didn’t say anything. Just waited.
She looked out the window again, more to avoid me than anything else. “I don’t know where I’ll go after this. After thirty days—twenty-nine now, I guess.” A small, bitter laugh slipped out. “But I’ll go somewhere. Just not back.”
She was trying to sound strong. Resolved. But I heard the tremor beneath it.
She opened her mouth again, preparing the defense I could already see forming behind her eyes. The same one she probably gave herself a hundred times when things got bad—when he yelled, or threw something, or said something that made her question if it really counted as too far.
“And about yesterday, we don’t know—” she started.
“We do,” I said, cutting her off—not harsh, just solid. Unmovable.
She blinked, surprised. I kept going.
“You’re not a child. And you’re not perfect. You made a mistake. You acknowledged it.” I met her eyes then, made sure she felt every word. “I require nothing else from you.”
She stared at me.
Something in her expression cracked—not dramatically, not loudly. Just enough.
Her eyes shimmered. She looked down, and when she spoke, it was barely a breath.
“…Thanks.”
And for once, she didn’t follow it with a joke.
She looked so small just then. Still. Quiet. That fire of hers dimmed, but it was not out.
I reached over gently and tilted her chin up with two fingers—not forceful, just enough so she’d meet my eyes again. “Let’s go home, hmm?”
That word—home—hung in the air longer than I meant it to.
A pause.
Then she blinked, and a faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “You mean your sterile, moody minimalist lair?”
“Correct,” I said, deadpan. “Where feelings go to die and the Wi-Fi is strong.”
She snorted—real, messy, unexpected. The sound made something in my chest unclench.
“So what’s the plan when we get there?” she asked, settling back into her seat. “More life coaching? An emotionally repressed TED Talk?”
“I was thinking silence and leftovers,” I replied. “Or I could critique your spoon technique again. You stir like you’re chasing demons.”
She rolled her eyes, but I saw the light coming back into her.
“Oh, good,” she muttered. “My favorite: judgment and microwaved guilt.”
“Some people pay for that.”
“Gross.”
I pulled away from the curb; the tires crunching softly against the pavement as we rejoined the quiet street.
The drive back was shorter than I remembered—probably because neither of us said much, but this time, the silence wasn’t sharp.
It stretched easy between us. No pressure.
No explosions. Just the kind of stillness that meant things weren’t breaking anymore.
When we pulled into the driveway, I parked and glanced at her.
“Back in the fortress,” she said with mock drama, unbuckling her seatbelt. “You have snacks in there, right?”
“Possibly,” I said. “If you behave.”
She raised a brow. “I’m literally incapable of that.”
Good. I didn’t want her to start now.
“You will not go back to him.”
I didn’t raise my voice. It wasn’t a threat, or a plea—it was a truth. A quiet command. A line drawn in stone.
Mina scoffed, but there was no fire behind it—just dry disbelief.
“Absolutely not,” she muttered, shaking her head as she unbuckled her seatbelt.
“I’m not perfect. I know people screw up, I know anger happens.
But the bastard cheated on me with a neighbor in biker shorts.
Like… really? There’s no coming back from that. None.”
She got out of the car before I could answer, already stalking toward the door like her anger was giving her momentum.
I followed.
And I’d never hated Mikel Petrov more than I did in that exact moment.
Not for the bet. Not even for the punch. But for making her believe she deserved any of it—for dragging someone like her into his garbage fire of ego and manipulation.
There was a good chance I’d hurt him. Soon.
The door shut behind us with a soft click, and she moved through my house like she’d lived here forever, muttering something about stealing all my socks and hiding the remote.
I didn’t hear most of it.
I was too busy standing in the doorway, staring after her, wondering how the hell I’d gotten so tangled up in this girl with the messiest bun and the saddest eyes and the sharpest mouth I’d ever heard.
It had barely been twenty-four hours.
I was in trouble.