Chapter 28
twenty-eight
Angelina
Movement in the gallery. Someone entering late.
My eyes flick up from defense counsel's motion—and the courtroom falls away.
Cole is at the front today. Three feet from the bench instead of his usual post by the door. Close enough to reach me. Too far to reach her.
Her.
Victoria Lockwood. Back row. Brown hair pulled back, professional blazer, pleasant expression. The same face that delivered expert testimony from my witness box. The same woman who's killed fourteen judges and left flowers on their graves.
My heart slams against my ribs. My hand finds the medal under my blouse before I can stop it.
No. Not here. Not in front of her.
Breathe. Your face is stone. You're presiding. You don't flinch.
Victoria's eyes find mine across the room. She smiles. Pleasant. Almost friendly.
I hold the gaze. Don't blink. Don't look away. My jaw aches from clenching and I force it to relax, muscle by muscle. Hands flat on the bench where no one can see them shaking.
Smile while you can.
She holds for three seconds. Four. Then she's rising, turning toward the back door like she just remembered somewhere else to be.
Cole moves, but the gallery is packed—lawyers, reporters, family members of the accused. By the time he reaches the aisle, the door is already swinging shut.
His hand goes to his earpiece. I give him the barest nod.
Later.
"Your Honor? Regarding the scheduling—"
I handle it. Somehow. Voice steady, rulings delivered, gavel down.
The SUV pulls away from the courthouse, and everything I was holding cracks open.
My hands are shaking. Not the fine tremor from the courtroom—full shakes, visible, embarrassing. I press them flat against my thighs.
"Chesca?" The question comes out rough.
"Safe. Mira's been sending updates." Cole's voice is calm. "Jax is teaching her math through racing statistics. Vanessa built her a history video game."
I turn to stare at him. "Vanessa made a video game? In two days?"
"Xander helped with the explosions. Historically accurate explosions, apparently."
A laugh escapes, cracked and wrong-sounding, but real. "She's never going to want to come home."
The word lands wrong. Home. Where I'm heading now. Where Victoria will come.
Cole takes the turn toward my neighborhood, and my hands start shaking again.
"Frost picked her up two blocks from the courthouse." His voice stays steady, like he hasn't noticed. "Extended stay hotel near the Financial District. Three weeks she's been there."
The house comes into view. Gray shingles. Japanese maple. The perfect lawn I pay someone else to keep perfect. The sky is the color of old bruises—yellow-gray. Will it rain?
Home.
The word used to mean safe. Right now it doesn't.
Cole pulls into the driveway. I stare at the front door—the same door where flowers appeared while I slept. While Cole slept next to me.
She was here. Right here. And you didn't know.
"Angelina."
I blink. Cole is watching me. Patient. Waiting.
"I'm fine." I reach for the door handle. "Let's go be normal."
I make it through the door. Through taking off my shoes. Through walking into the kitchen and opening the refrigerator like I'm going to cook something.
The kitchen is too quiet. Chesca should be here, chattering about her day, asking for snacks, leaving a trail of crumbs I'll pretend to be annoyed about. Mia bambina.
I pull out pasta. Sauce. The jar with the cartoon tomato that Chesca loves.
My eyes sting. I blink hard, swallow against the tightness in my throat.
You're doing this for her. So it can be over. So she can come home.
But what if I'm wrong? What if this is just another bad decision dressed up as bravery?
This was your idea. Own it.
The water takes forever to boil. I watch the tiny bubbles form on the bottom of the pot, and something wet slides down my cheek.
Now you're in your kitchen. The same kitchen she was two blocks from. And you're shaking.
I'm not shaking.
My hand trembles as I reach for the salt.
You held her gaze, and she smiled like you were amusing.
The salt shaker slips. I catch it before it falls, but my grip is wrong, too tight, knuckles white.
You think this makes you strong? You think one staring contest means you can handle her coming here? Coming into your house?
"Angelina."
Cole's voice. Distant. The kitchen shrinks. Walls pressing closer.
You're going to freeze when it matters. Just like you froze with Adrian. Just like you always freeze.
I know what this is. Dr. Huang explained it years ago—how the body learns what keeps it alive. Mine learned freeze. Freeze meant Adrian stopped eventually. Freeze meant surviving.
Knowing doesn't stop it.
Exhibit A: the woman who couldn't leave. Exhibit B: the woman who'll freeze again.
"I can't—" The words come out strangled. "Dio mio—I can't breathe."
My legs give out. I grab for the counter, miss, and then I'm sinking—sliding down the cabinet until I'm on the cold tile floor with my back against the dishwasher.
My fingers close around the St. Christopher medal. The metal bites into my palm.
You said you'd be bait because you wanted to feel brave. You're not brave. You're pathetic. You're—
"Angelina."
Cole is beside me—when did he move? He crouches, putting himself in my line of vision.
"I'm going to touch your back. Is that okay?"
I nod. Or I think I nod.
His hand presses flat between my shoulder blades. Warm. Steady. Not moving, not rubbing—present.
"Breathe with me. In for four."
I try. It comes out ragged, gasping.
"Good. Hold for four."
I can't. I can't hold. I can't—
"You're doing fine. Out for six."
The exhale shudders out of me. His hand stays on my back. Warm. Present.
"Again. In for four."
We do it again. And again. And again. I don't know how many times. The kitchen slowly stops spinning. The edges of my vision come back. Adrian's voice fades—not gone, never gone, but quieter.
My cheeks are wet. I don't remember crying.
Cole is beside me on the floor. Close but not crowding. Waiting.
"I held her gaze." My voice sounds wrong. Hollow. "In the courtroom. I held. And I felt strong." A cracked sound escapes. "For about twenty minutes."
"You are strong. This—" he gestures at the kitchen floor, at my shaking hands, at the mess of me, "—does not change that."
"It's not strength."
"Trauma responses are not weakness. They are survival." His voice is quiet. Matter-of-fact. "Your nervous system learned what it needed to learn. You are strong, and you have a body that remembers danger. Both are true."
Dr. Huang says the same thing. It's easier to believe in her office. Harder on my kitchen floor while a serial killer circles my house.
"I agreed to be bait." I stare at the cabinet across from me. "At the briefing, surrounded by your team, I felt ready. Now I just feel—"
"Human."
I look at him.
"You are allowed to be afraid," he says. "You are not required to perform courage for anyone. Not even yourself."
My eyes sting. I blink it back.
"The pasta water is boiling over."
A small smile crosses his face. Just a flicker. "I will handle it."
He rises, turns off the burner. I stay on the floor for another minute, letting my heart rate settle, letting the kitchen become a kitchen again.
"Stay there." He's already pulling a fresh pot from the cabinet. "I will finish."
I don't argue. I sit on the floor and watch Cole move through my kitchen—filling the pot, salting the water, finding the pasta in the cabinet where I left it. He doesn't rush. Doesn't fumble.
When the pasta is done, he drains it, adds the sauce, and plates two servings. Then he offers me his hand.
I take it. He pulls me up and doesn't stop—pulls me against his chest, arms locked around me.
I press my ear to his heartbeat. Steady. Slow. Mine tries to match it.
We stand there until the shaking stops.
We eat at the table. The pasta tastes like nothing. I eat it anyway.
After dinner, I curl up on the couch with the novel I've been reading for three weeks—same chapter, never making progress. Cole settles into the armchair across from me, phone in hand. The clock ticks past nine. Past ten. Past eleven.
I've read the same paragraph four times when his phone buzzes.
Cole reads the screen. His face goes still.
"What?"
He looks up.
"She left the hotel."