Chapter 6 Cole #2
She should look at her father like this. She should have someone who—
I stop the thought. Not helpful. Not relevant.
When I glance toward the kitchen, Angelina's wooden spoon has stopped. She's watching us, me and her daughter., with an expression I can't fully read. The tight line of her mouth softens. Her eyes stay on us a beat too long.
Then she catches herself. Turns back to the sauce. The softness gone before I can hold onto it.
You're scared. Not of me, but of Chesca getting attached. Of me leaving again. Of history repeating.
I'm not leaving, Firefly. Not this time. Not ever.
"Bedtime, piccola." Angelina's voice cuts through gently. "Go brush your teeth. I'll be up in ten minutes."
"But I wanted to ask Mr. Cole more questions."
"Tomorrow. Teeth. Now."
Chesca sighs with the dramatic weight of an eight-year-old being denied critical intelligence.
"Fine." She gathers her papers, then pauses at the bottom of the stairs to look back at me. "You'll still be here tomorrow?"
The question lands somewhere in my chest and stays there.
"I'll be here."
She nods once, satisfied, and disappears upstairs. Her footsteps creak across the ceiling, then the bathroom faucet runs.
The kitchen goes quiet except for the sauce bubbling on the stove.
I think about how stilted dinner was when Angelina goes upstairs.
Chesca's chatter about her spelling test filled most of the silences, her questions providing cover for the tension neither Angelina nor I acknowledged.
Normal, almost. If you didn't know to look for the way her hands trembled when she passed the bread, or the way she flinched when headlights swept across the window.
Normal, almost. If you didn't know to look for the way her hands trembled when she passed the bread, or the way she flinched when headlights swept across the window.
Now the house settles into evening quiet. Angelina clicked off Chesca's light twenty minutes ago.
It's just us.
Angelina stands at the sink, hot water running and dish soap bubbles multiplying across the surface. She grabs a pot and starts scrubbing like she's trying to erase something that goes deeper than tomato residue.
Whatever Adrian did, I hope it hurt less than that pot.
I pick up the towel, position myself next to her. Close enough that my arm brushes hers when I reach for the plate she sets in the drying rack. She shifts away. Not enough to be obvious, but enough that I notice.
Touch aversion. Not with Chesca. She held her daughter earlier without flinching. Just with me. Or maybe just with men.
What did he do to you?
"He's going to be in your courtroom." I keep my voice low, even. The voice of a strategist presenting analysis, not a man whose blood is running hot with protective fury. "Every day of the trial. Watching you."
Her shoulders tighten. "I know."
"He's associate counsel. Not a witness passing through." I let that sit. "Weeks. Months, if Harrison keeps filing continuances."
"I'm aware of how trials work, Cole." The words come out brittle. "I do run a courtroom."
I dry another plate, set it down. "This doesn't concern you?"
She scrubs harder. "I can handle Adrian."
"How?"
"The same way I've handled everything else." Her words come out sharp. "Alone."
The distance between us feels wrong. Forced. Like she's working twice as hard to maintain it as she would if it came naturally.
I move closer. Not threatening, but not giving her space either. Her breathing changes. Shallows.
"You're not alone anymore."
"By choice?" A bitter laugh escapes her throat like something she's been holding back all day. "Or because you've been watching me through cameras for 7 years like an unhinged stalker?"
The word lands exactly where she aimed it. Stalker. Unhinged. All the things I am, thrown back at me like weapons.
I can't defend myself against them. They're true.
She steps back, arms crossed. "You said 'something larger.' You said you were waiting for confirmation. It's been two days, Cole. What aren't you telling me?"
"Kade's team is still running analysis. When we have something concrete—"
"I don't want concrete. I want context." Her voice sharpens into something closer to the courtroom. "Is this about the sedan? About me specifically? Or is there a bigger threat you're dancing around?"
Judges are dying. Four in six weeks. The pattern is moving west and you're standing directly in its path.
I can't tell her that. Not yet. Not without evidence that separates pattern from coincidence.
"There's a threat beyond the sedan. We think you may be connected to it." I hold her gaze. "That's all I can give you until Kade confirms the pattern."
"A threat." She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You're in my house. Watching my daughter. And 'a threat' is all I get?"
"For now."
Her jaw tightens. I watch her weigh whether to push harder or let it go.
Then something shifts in her expression—exhaustion winning over fury.
"Fine. But I want answers soon, Cole. Real ones. Not 'patterns' and 'confirmation.'"
"You'll have them."
She doesn't look convinced. But she doesn't push further either.
The kitchen light catches the shadows under her eyes. She hasn't slept properly since I arrived.
But the threat briefing isn't what's draining her tonight. Something else is sitting in her chest, heavier than surveillance and vague warnings.
Adrian. The her ex-husband in the charcoal suit. The way she stopped breathing when she saw him.
"The way he looked at you today." I keep my voice level even though everything in me wants to demand answers, to shake the truth out of her, to understand what I'm fighting so I can destroy it.
"That wasn't an ex checking in. His eyes tracked you like something he'd misplaced. Something he expected to get back."
"Drop it, Cole."
Her hand drifts to her throat, fingers pressing into the hollow above her collarbone. She catches herself doing it, yanks her hand away like it burned her.
That wasn't casual. That was muscle memory. What did he do to your throat?
"That was possession. And you froze."
"He doesn't own me."
"Then why are you shaking?"
She yanks away from the counter, steps back fast. Puts distance between us like a barrier. Her hands are still wet, water dripping onto the tile floor. Caught mid-task. Vulnerable.
She's shaking and pretending she's not. How long did she have to pretend with him? How many years of hiding reactions, of controlling her face, of making herself small and invisible and safe?
"You don't own me either, Cole. You don't get to interrogate me because you spent years watching me through screens."
"I'm not interrogating. I'm asking."
"Same thing."
The kitchen light's too bright. Nowhere to hide. I see every micro-expression she tries to suppress. Her fear bleeding through anger, anger covering fear.
"Then here's what I know without asking.
" I keep my voice steady, presenting facts rather than accusations.
"He hurt you. I don't know how, and I don't know when.
But something happened between you that made you flinch at sudden movements.
That taught you to stand with your back against walls.
That made you erase him so completely from your daughter's life that she doesn't even know his name. "
Her face goes blank. Eyes flat. Jaw set. The transformation is instant, like shutters slamming over windows, every trace of vulnerability locked away behind armor I can't penetrate.
"This conversation is over." She walks toward the doorway.
"Angelina."
I close the distance between us. Not touching. Just present. Close enough that she can feel me there, close enough that she knows I'm not backing down.
"How did he hurt you?"
Silence stretches. Her shoulders rise and fall with controlled breathing, the kind that comes from practice, from years of managing reactions that would give too much away.
"I knew it was him before I looked up." Her voice goes hollow. "The shoes. He has this drag on his left foot. I used to hear it coming down the hallway and know—"
She stops. Swallows.
Know what? What did you know was coming, Firefly?
But I don't want to push too hard right now.
When she finally speaks, her voice comes out stripped bare. Raw in a way I haven't heard since college, since before whatever happened that turned my Firefly into this fortress of a woman.
"If I say yes, what happens?"
"Then diplomatic immunity becomes a very temporary problem."
She exhales, not quite a laugh, not quite a sob. The sound breaks in her throat. "He never touched Chesca. I made sure of that. I left before she was born."
She was pregnant when she left him. Alone and pregnant and running from a man with diplomatic immunity, with connections, with every advantage money and power could provide.
And she still got out. She still protected her daughter.
"What did he do?"
"Enough." The word falls like a stone. Her hand moves unconsciously toward the living room, toward the stairs, toward where Chesca sleeps.
"Enough that I knew staying meant one of us wouldn't survive.
Me or her. He's in the same city as my daughter now, Cole.
Eight years and an ocean weren't enough distance. "
She finally turns. Eyes bright with tears she refuses to let fall, jaw set with the stubborn pride I fell in love with fifteen years ago.
My hand moves before conscious thought. I touch her jaw, light, barely there. She stiffens but doesn't pull away.
Cradling. Not controlling. She needs to know the difference. She needs to know I'm not him.
"I handled it. Uncle Sal helped. Adrian's been gone eight years." Her voice goes flat. "And now he's back."
Uncle Sal. The mob connections. She called in a favor to survive. Made a deal with one devil to escape another. How much did that cost her? What does she owe for her freedom?
"If he comes near you again—" My voice drops low. A promise, not a threat. "Either of you. Diplomatic immunity won't save him."
"You can't promise that."
"I just did."
She's quiet for a long moment. Her hand rests where I touched her jaw, fingers trembling against her own skin.
"I've heard promises before." Her voice comes out barely above a whisper. "They don't usually mean anything."
"Mine do."
Her eyes search my face. Looking for the lie, the angle, the trap. I let her look. Let her see whatever she needs to see.
Finally, she exhales. Not agreement. Not trust. Just... something loosening.
"Okay."
One word. Almost nothing.
But from her, tonight, it's everything.