20. Ethan
ETHAN
Irun every red light between my building and Mia's.
My mind races through scenarios, each one worse than the last. Derek escalating from photos to physical confrontation. An intruder. An accident. The way her voice cracked on the phone suggests none of those explanations are adequate.
The car screeches to a stop outside her building. I'm out before I fully park it, taking the stairs two at a time because waiting for the elevator feels impossible.
Her apartment door is open.
Not broken in, just standing ajar like an invitation or a warning. My pulse kicks into overdrive as I push through.
The living room stops me cold.
Destruction, systematic and thorough. Couch gutted, books destroyed, furniture overturned. Flour and oil coating the kitchen like someone took their time making sure nothing remained untouched. The violence of it makes my hands curl into fists.
"Mia?"
"I-I'm here."
Her voice comes from down the hall, small and hollow in a way I've never heard before. I move through the wreckage, glass crunching under my shoes, until I reach the doorway.
She's sitting on the floor, back against the frame, knees drawn up to her chest. Tears track down her face in silent streams. Her entire body shakes with sobs she's trying to suppress.
The sight of her breaks my heart.
I cross the room in three strides, sink down beside her, and pull her into my arms without asking permission. She collapses against me immediately, face buried in my shoulder while the sobs finally break free. Loud, wrenching sounds that make her entire frame convulse.
"I've got you," I murmur into her hair. "You're safe. I've got you."
She grips my shirt so tightly I feel fabric tear. I don't care. I just hold her while she falls apart, one hand stroking her back, the other cradling her head.
Minutes pass. Maybe hours. Time loses meaning while Mia cries out weeks of terror and exhaustion and everything she's been holding together through sheer force of will.
Eventually the sobs quiet to hiccupping breaths. She pulls back slightly, swipes at her face with shaking hands.
"I'm sorry," she whispers.
"Don't apologize. Not for this."
"My apartment is destroyed."
"I know."
"He was in here, Ethan. He touched my things, he destroyed my grandmother's quilt, he—" Her voice breaks again. "The rose. There's a black rose on my dresser."
I look past her into the bedroom. See the devastation, the shredded clothes, the gutted mattress. And on the dresser, that single black flower sitting like a calling card.
The rage that floods my system is white-hot and consuming.
"I'm calling the police," I say, already reaching for my phone.
"What good will that do? He'll just deny it. There's probably no evidence linking him here."
"There's breaking and entering. Property destruction. This crosses every line, Mia. We can't let it go."
She closes her eyes, leans her head back against the doorframe. "Okay. Call them."
I dial 911, give the address and situation in clipped sentences. The dispatcher says units are on their way, asks if we need medical attention, tells us not to touch anything until officers arrive.
When I hang up, Mia's watching me with red-rimmed eyes that look devastated and exhausted.
"I can't stay here," she whispers.
"I know."
"Even after they fix everything, replace the furniture, clean up the mess... I can't live here knowing he was inside. Knowing he did this."
"You don't have to."
"Where am I supposed to go? I can't afford another apartment right now, the restaurant's barely breaking even, and?—"
"You're staying with me."
She blinks. "Ethan?—"
"I'm not arguing about this. Your apartment isn't safe, Derek's proven he can get inside whenever he wants, and I'll be damned if I let you spend one more night somewhere he has access.
" I cup her face gently, force her to meet my eyes.
"You're coming home with me tonight. No arguments.
That bastard just destroyed your home. You think I'm letting you figure this out alone? "
Fresh tears spill over, but these feel different. Less panic, more relief.
"Okay," she breathes. "Okay."
I pull her close again, press my lips to her forehead. Her hands are still shaking where they grip my shirt, legs weak when I help her stand.
The police arrive twenty minutes later. Two officers, one older with a weathered face, one younger who looks barely out of the academy. They survey the damage with professional detachment, taking photos and notes while Mia walks them through what she found.
"Any idea who did this?" the older officer asks.
"My ex-boyfriend. Derek Wayne."
She tells them about the restraining order, explains the escalating pattern, tells them about the confrontation outside Sable yesterday. They take notes, ask follow-up questions, promise to file a report and investigate.
But I can see it in their expressions. Without direct evidence linking Derek to the break-in, without witnesses or security footage, this becomes another property crime in a city full of them.
"We'll do what we can," the older officer says when they're finished. "But I have to be honest, without more to go on?—"
"I understand," Mia interrupts quietly. "Thank you for coming."
They leave. The apartment feels even more violated in their wake, the official documentation of destruction somehow making it more real.
I find a bag in the hallway closet that survived the ransacking. Start gathering clothes from what's left of Mia's wardrobe, toiletries from the bathroom, anything essential that wasn't destroyed.
She watches from the bedroom doorway, arms wrapped around herself.
"You don't have to do this," she says.
"Yes, I do."
"Ethan—"
"Mia, please. Let me help. Just this once, let me actually help instead of fighting me on it."
She nods slowly, moves into the bedroom, and starts helping me pack.
We work in silence, collecting pieces of her life that Derek didn't destroy. It takes fifteen minutes to fill the bag with everything salvageable.
Before we leave, I walk back to the bedroom. Pick up the black rose from the dresser using a tissue, drop it in an evidence bag from my briefcase that I always keep for exactly these situations.
"What are you doing?" Mia asks.
"Preserving evidence. Even if the police can't do anything with it right now, we will eventually."
She doesn't argue.
The ride to my building is silent. Mia sits pressed against the door, staring out the window at the city passing by. I keep one hand on her knee, grounding, letting her know I'm here.
The doorman greets us with a professional courtesy that doesn't quite hide his curiosity about Mia returning at two AM with a duffel bag and tear-stained face. I nod at him, guide Mia to the elevator with a hand at the small of her back.
My penthouse feels different with her here under these circumstances. Less like the sterile bachelor space it usually is, more like something that could actually be a home.
I set her bag down in the guest room. Turn on the lights, show her where the bathroom is, make sure she has everything she needs.
"There are fresh towels in the closet," I tell her. "Help yourself to anything in the kitchen. And if you need me, I'm just down the hall."
She stands in the middle of the guest room looking small and lost in her destroyed clothes, holding herself together through sheer stubbornness.
"Thank you," she whispers. "For all of it."
"You don't need to thank me."
"Yes, I do."
I cross the space between us, pull her into another hug because she's still shaking and I can't stand it. She melts against me, face buried against my chest, breathing in shaky gasps.
"You're safe here," I murmur. "Derek doesn't have access to this building. You're safe, Mia."
"I don't feel safe."
"I know. But you will. I promise."
We stand like that until her breathing evens out, until the shaking subsides, until she pulls back and wipes at her face with both hands.
"I should try to sleep," she says.
"Good idea."
But neither of us moves. We just stand there in my guest room at three in the morning, looking at each other while everything we're not saying hangs heavy in the air.
"Stay," she finally whispers. "Just... don't leave me alone tonight. Please."
Every logical part of my brain screams that this is a bad idea, that staying crosses lines we already agreed not to cross, that holding her while she sleeps will make everything more complicated.
I ignore all of it.
"Okay," I say simply. "I'll stay."