Chapter 3 Angelina #2
The openness in his face shutters instantly. Something dark flashes behind those eyes before he controls it, stuffs it down wherever he keeps all the things he doesn't let people see.
Good. Hurt. You earned it.
"I'm not a stranger, Angelina."
The way he says my name, full and with that rough edge that makes my stomach flip, sends heat through me I immediately crush.
That's fury. Fury at his presumption. Nothing else.
"You were." My chin lifts. "Before college. Before any of it. And you are again. Someone I don't know. Someone I don't want to know."
Fifteen years since we first met in that overcrowded lecture hall. Twelve since he left. All that time has turned him into this, a stranger wearing a familiar face, claiming intimacy he surrendered when he walked away.
"You think time makes me not know you?"
I don't have an answer to that, because what does he mean know you? How can he claim knowledge of someone he hasn't seen in over a decade?
"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. "I am the 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."
He reaches the living room, moving toward the front door. At the threshold, he pauses.
"Lock the deadbolt. And the chain." He doesn't turn around. "And doublecheck your back locks. The side gate doesn't catch. Anyone could walk into your backyard."
Cold slices through me. How does he know that?
Before I can demand an answer, he's through the door, pulling it shut behind him with a soft click that sounds louder than it should.
I'm across the room in three steps, hands fumbling with the deadbolt, then the chain. The metal slides home with a satisfying thunk.
Through the narrow window beside the door. His back retreating toward a black SUV parked across the street. He doesn't look back.
The house settles into silence around me.
I won.
Then why does it feel like losing?
I check every lock in the house.
At the front door, the deadbolt and chain are both engaged. I check the back door, the deadbolt and wooden security bar Sal installed last year in place. The sliding glass door to the patio as the metal rod in the track, safety latch engaged.
The windows take longer.
Living room, kitchen, dining room. I move through the downstairs like I'm securing a crime scene, testing each latch twice, three times, until my fingers ache from pressing against cold metal.
The side gate.
I flip on the back porch light and peer through the kitchen window. The wooden gate sits at the end of the fence line, barely visible in the dark. I've meant to fix that latch for months. Kept forgetting.
Has he been watching me?
I climb the stairs slowly, each step groaning in the familiar pattern. Third step groans. Seventh step squeaks. Halfway up, I pull out my phone and arm the interior sensors, setting the app to alert me if anyone moves downstairs.
Chesca's door is cracked open, the way she likes it. Nightlight casting purple butterflies across her ceiling. I push inside and stand over her bed. Her chest rises. Falls.
Uno. Due. Tre.
The ritual I started when she was a newborn, when I was alone in that apartment and her father was god-knows-where. When I would wake at 3 AM convinced something was wrong and stand over her crib counting breaths until my heart stopped racing.
Quattro. Cinque. Sei.
She's fine. She's safe. She's sleeping with Aaron Bear tucked under one arm, dark hair splayed across her pillow, face slack and peaceful in a way she never manages when awake.
I check her windows. Both locked. Both secure.
I back out of Chesca's room slowly, pulling the door to the angle she prefers, cracked exactly three inches, enough to let light in but not enough to feel exposed.
My own room feels wrong. Too quiet. Too empty.
I check those windows too. Both locked. The one facing the street gives me a view of him leaning against his motorcycle, parked across the street, dark and silent.
Watching.
I yank the curtains closed.
Sleep isn't coming. I know it before I even try. But I go through the motions anyway—washing my face, brushing my teeth, changing from the sleep shorts into actual pajamas because somehow that feels less vulnerable.
The bed is cold when I slide between the sheets.
One night, I tell myself. Tomorrow I'll get answers.
But beneath the fury and exhaustion, awareness pulses. The way he looked at me, the way my body went on high alert, twelve years dissolved in his presence.
College Cole broke my heart "for my own good."
This Cole looks at me like he never left. Like leaving was something that happened to his body but not his mind.
And I don't know what to do with that.
Tomorrow I'll get answers. Tomorrow I'll make him leave.
Tonight I lay here and pretend my hands are shaking from anger.
Just anger. Nothing else.
At 2:45, I hear a motorcycle engine moving away. I get up and check the downstairs locks again. All secure. Through the front window, I see Cole's motorcycle has been replaced with an SUV, and I can make out the outline of him sitting in the front seat.
The gate. He knew about the gate.
How?
The question chases itself around my skull, wearing grooves into my exhaustion. The only explanation is surveillance. Cameras, maybe. Research, definitely.
But underneath the terror is relief. Someone's been paying attention, and my daughter is still breathing, still safe, still clutching her bear with the innocence of a child who doesn't know her mother is falling apart three doors down.
Stop it. Stop rationalizing. Stop making excuses for him.
I return to bed and check my phone. 3:17 AM. I have court at 9:00. The DeLuca preliminary hearing. Evidence review at 8:30.
Sleep. I need to sleep.
The ceiling offers no answers.
I check my phone again and it's 5:47 AM. Did I actually sleep?
The sky is lightening outside. Gray, then pink, then the pale gold of a May morning. San Francisco waking up.
I haven't slept.
Every muscle aches from tension I couldn't release, and my eyes burn like I've been staring into headlights for hours.
And sometime during the night something shifted.
I can't protect her alone. Not against something I don't understand. Being the only barrier between my daughter and danger has been crushing me for eight years, and I've been crushed before, and I won't survive it again.
You don't have to decide anything yet. Just... don't send him away. Not until you know more.
The SUV is still there when I check. Still dark. Still watching.
He stayed.
The whole night, he stayed.
I pull the curtains closed and go start the coffee.