Chapter 41
TAKING THE HIT (LIZ)
Aweek back at the Cherokee is long enough to feel like routine, short enough to still feel temporary.
Eden is here some nights, barefoot in an oversized sweatshirt, picking through takeout and telling me about patients, Nate, or whatever absurd new thing one of the Defenders guys is up to. Other nights, she’s in Tarrytown with him, and the apartment settles around me. Not empty. Just mine again.
I asked for that. I still mean it.
Grossman has stopped pretending to be polite. The pace doesn’t scare me. It dares me, which is different. I know how to work. I know how to keep going.
Some mornings I run intervals along the East River until my thighs burn and the noise in my head evens out.
Running was ours for a while, the rhythm of it.
I catch myself looking across the water, as if I might feel him out there somewhere farther south on the Brooklyn side, doing his own roadwork while the city stretches awake between us.
I miss him.
Not in a way that makes me want to go back. In sharper places than that. In the click of the lock. In the silence after. In the ridiculous competence of him. In the way part of my body had already started expecting him.
Travis wanted to reduce me. Leo wanted to guard against threat. My body answered both men with panic. That doesn’t make them the same.
I’m not ready to do much with that distinction yet. I only know it’s here now, sitting in the room with me whether I invite it in or not.
When I come out of Grossman on Thursday, I start toward the M15 stop on East 34th, then change my mind and keep walking uptown.
It’s too gorgeous outside. The sun is warm, the air clear.
The movement feels glorious immediately. Dry pavement under my sneakers. That brief, thrilling sense of having chosen my own evening. Shower first when I get home. Then a salad. Then a couple of hours on renal before I let myself switch to anatomy review.
This is what I wanted.
A walk home. A drink sweating in my palm. My own keys in my bag. An evening that belongs to me before anyone else gets to touch it.
By the time I hit the mid-seventies, the sidewalks have thinned a little. Dog walkers. Women pushing strollers. Kids holding someone’s hand on their way to dinner.
That’s when I hear my name.
Not the one professors use. Not the clipped, polite Liz I answer to all day now.
The old one.
“Lillian.”
Everything in me goes cold.
Travis is standing a few yards ahead, one hand in his jacket pocket, like he has nowhere else to be. Like he belongs in the middle of my evening.
I stop, irritation hitting me hot and clean.
Of course he would try to step into the narrow, ordinary piece of my life I had managed to carve back out for myself.
“I’m not interested,” I snap.
He smiles as if I’ve opened a conversation instead of ending one. “That’s a hell of a greeting.”
“Good. Then you heard it.”
His gaze drops to my drink, the tote over my shoulder. Taking inventory. That alone makes me want to claw his eyes out.
“You look good. Calmer.”
I laugh once. “You should go before I make a scene.”
That smile shifts, barely. “Still dramatic.”
Still.
The word makes my skin prickle.
People keep moving around us. A woman with a cane. Couple with a stroller. A teenager on a scooter cutting too close to the curb. Normal city motion, close enough to help, far enough not to matter unless I force it to.
I glance past him, measuring distance without moving my head too much. Eden’s studio is a couple of minutes north. The avenue is open ahead. Traffic steady. Enough people. Enough eyes. If I have to run, I can run.
“Move out of my way.”
He moves closer instead, enough to tell me he’s not taking me seriously.
“We should talk.”
“We absolutely should not.”
“Lillian.”
“Don’t call me that.”
His expression changes at last. Mild patience with something ugly and familiar underneath. “You don’t get to erase half your life because some boxer moved you into his place.”
The disgust lands so hard it steadies me.
“Keep watching,” I bite.
His jaw tightens. “This is about him.”
I feel the last soft edge inside me burns off.
“This is about you walking up on me in the street after I’ve made it clear I want nothing to do with you.”
He moves closer. Close enough now that I can smell his cologne under the city air. My whole body recoils.
“You think I don’t know what this was?” He lowers his voice. “The boxer. The apartment. The whole show. He had his turn. Fine. That doesn’t change what you are to me.”
My grip tightens around my drink so hard the plastic creaks.
“What I am,” I say, each word flat and clear, “is a woman telling you to get away from her.”
A couple passing on the sidewalk glance over.
Good.
He notices too. Drops his voice even more. “You always do this. You make everything bigger than it is.”
There it is. Make the reaction the problem. Make me the unstable one.
Not today.
“I’m going to say this again. Move away from me. Right now.”
Instead, he reaches for my arm.
Not a lunge. Not enough to look violent at a glance. Just his hand closing around my elbow with the same old presumption that he can redirect my body if he wants to.
I jerk back so hard, the iced tea splashes cold over my fingers.
“Don’t touch me.”
Heads turn this time.
His grip tightens for one stupid second, maybe because he thinks he can calm me, maybe because he thinks he can still contain the scene by controlling me inside it.
I wrench my arm again and pitch my voice louder. “Let go of me, Travis, or I will scream.”
A man walking a dog slows. A woman near the curb stops pretending not to look. Travis’s fingers loosen, but he doesn’t drop away fully. His eyes flash with something mean and humiliated.
“You’re overreacting.”
I laugh right in his face.
“No. I’m escalating.”
Then I pull free. The relief is instant and not nearly enough.
I back away, putting space between us, tracking my options. Open sidewalk ahead. Clinic two blocks north. Traffic to the left. I can run to Eden’s door or straight for the avenue, making enough noise to turn every head on this block.
He sees the calculation and hates it.
“You really think he changed anything?” he asks, low and venomous now. “You think one guy with a belt and good shoulders gets to rewrite—”
“Drake.”
The voice behind him is quiet. It still cuts through the block like a blade.
Travis turns.
Leo is coming toward us from the corner, keys in his fist, expression flat in a way that’s far more dangerous than anger.
Dark T-shirt, gym shorts, shoulders broad enough to change the geometry of the sidewalk the second he steps onto it.
There’s no rush in him. No visible fury.
Just a level of contained focus that makes the air feel thinner.
He looks first at me.
Then at the red mark already rising on my arm.
Then at Travis.
His face changes so quickly most people would miss it. I don’t.
“Step away from her.”
Nobody moves.
Travis turns slowly, and I watch the exact moment calculation hits. He knows exactly what kind of scene this could become.
That mean little shine in his eyes comes back almost at once.
“Well,” he drawls, barely moving an inch. “Here comes the champ.”
Leo’s attention stays on Drake, flat and exact.
“I said step away from her.”
Drake’s mouth curls. “Relax. We were talking.”
“No,” I say. “You were grabbing me.”
The only sign he heard me is a brief hard set to his mouth.
Drake straightens a little, shoulders widening, performing for the crowd now that he has one. Two women on the sidewalk have slowed openly. The man with the dog is still standing ten feet away pretending not to listen while catching every word.
Drake gives Leo a slow once-over, from the T-shirt to the gym shorts to the keys still in his fist. “You really do just show up everywhere, don’t you?”
Leo says nothing. That silence lands harder than a comeback would.
Drake smiles wider. “Must be tough to know when to stop playing bodyguard.”
I feel the blood rise, but Leo doesn’t move.
“Leave,” he says.
Drake lets out a soft laugh. “Or what?”
The bait lands in the middle of York Avenue between them.
Leo advances one step, not enough to close the distance, just enough to narrow Drake’s options.
“You leave now,” Leo says quietly, “or I call the police and hand them witnesses.”
Drake snorts. “That what you do now? Hide behind process?”
Leo’s expression doesn’t change. “You put your hands on her in public.”
“I touched her arm.”
“You put your hands on her after she told you not to.”
“She’s my wife.”
“No,” I say, before Leo can. “I’m your ex-wife, and you need to get that through your skull.”
His head snaps toward me so fast, my body flinches before I can stop it.
Leo shifts at once, cutting off the line between us without laying a hand on me. He doesn’t reach back for me. Doesn’t take my wrist. Doesn’t box me in. He just changes the line of access.
The distinction lands hard enough to feel physical. Drake sees it happen and hates it.
“You think this is protection?” he says to Leo, but loud enough for me to hear. “You think moving her into your place, playing hero—”
Leo cuts across him. “You don’t get to say another word about her.”
Drake’s eyes flash. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
Leo doesn’t answer, which somehow makes it more dangerous.
Every word out of Drake’s mouth is trying to drag this into the gutter, and Leo refuses to follow.
Drake tilts his head, studying him. “What, you too good for it out here?” His smile goes sharp and ugly. “That belt makes you soft?”
Leo’s grip tightens once around the keys. That’s the only visible sign that anything in him is moving at all.
Then he says, “You’re not worth the paperwork.”
The dog walker, fully watching now, barks out a laugh before he can stop himself.
Drake hears it. The color in his neck darkens.
Good.
He advances, pushing again, trying to force Leo into a body decision. “Funny. I thought fighters liked crowds.”
Leo doesn’t give him the line he wants. “Real ones do.”
Drake’s mouth hardens.
He tries one more time, meaner now, more naked. “What’s the matter? Don’t want your girl seeing what happens when someone hits back?”
“Drake,” Leo says, and now his tone is so low I feel it more than hear it, “walk away.”
That does it.
Not because it sounds loud. Because it sounds final. Just a man standing inside his own control and making Drake look cheap by comparison.
For one ugly second, I think Drake is going to push anyway. I see it flicker through him—the need to reclaim something, to make this messy enough to feel like a draw.
Then he looks past Leo and sees the eyes on him. Another couple watching. The women near the curb. Witnesses.
His lip curls.
“This isn’t over,” he says, the words aimed at Leo but poisoned for me too.
Leo doesn’t blink. “It is for today.”
Drake laughs once under his breath, but there’s no humor in it. Just humiliation with nowhere to go.
He points at me first, then at Leo, a stupid little gesture that says more about his state than any threat could. “You can dress it up however you want. Same game.”
“No,” I say. My tone comes out steadier than I feel. “It really isn’t.”
He looks at me properly, maybe for the first time since he stepped into my path.
Not ownership this time. Not certainty.
Rage.
I hold his gaze and give him nothing.
Whatever he sees there makes up his mind for him. He backs away, then another step, retreat disguised as contempt.
“This city gets small,” he mutters.
“Keep walking,” Leo says.
Drake peels off down the sidewalk with that same poisoned swagger, as if leaving and winning are the same thing. He doesn’t look back until the corner, and when he does, Leo is still there, still not moving.
Then he disappears into the flow of people and traffic.
Only after he’s gone do I realize my iced tea is dripping down the side of my cup, sticky and cold.
Leo turns to look at me. His gaze drops first to my arm.
The mark is already there, angry and pink where Travis grabbed me. His hand closes harder around the keys.
“Did he hurt you?”
The question is quiet. No heat in it now. Just control pulled tight.
“No.”
It comes out thinner than I want, so I clear my throat and try again. “No. He grabbed me. That’s all.”
A couple steps in carefully. The woman hands me a scrap of paper. “Our names and phone numbers. If you need witnesses.”
I look up, surprised, then slowly take the paper from her.
“Thank you,” I whisper, my cheeks burning. They walk away, shaking their heads.
Leo’s attention lingers on the mark on my arm before it returns to my face.
“My car’s down the block,” he says. “I was Eden’s last appointment. She already left.”
“Okay.”
Leo stays silent.
“I’ll file a restraining order,” I add.
“Let me know if you need me to testify.” He glances once toward the corner where Travis disappeared, then back at me. “If he comes near you again, call 911 first.” Then, softer, “Then call me.”
He looks at my arm one last time.
“Go home. Ice it.”
It’s the bare edge of care. Nothing more.
“Leo.”
He waits.
“Travis called. Weeks ago, from an unknown number. It had a Louisiana area code.” I keep my eyes on my arm. “I didn’t answer. I didn’t tell you.”
His Adam’s apple rolls.
“And there was a man on Fire Island, in the crowd after the fireworks. He knew my name—the old one.” I finally look up. “I think Travis has been asking around for a while.”
Leo stays silent.
“I should have told you. I know that.”
He doesn’t answer right away. When he does, his voice is even.
“I know why you didn’t.”
He doesn’t say it’s okay. He doesn’t say it doesn’t matter. He just stands there with it and absorbs it, letting it be what it is.
He steps back first. That, more than anything else, nearly undoes me. Not the rescue. Not the control. The fact that he gives me back my own movement.
I tighten my grip on the sticky cup and make myself walk.
I don’t look back.
I don’t have to. I can feel him there, holding that line.