Chapter 18
Aiden
“How many stitches?”
My heart lodges somewhere in my throat as I stand in the emergency room at the University of Vermont Medical Center, adrenaline still crashing through me. Since Katya called me to let me know what happened, I’ve been losing my mind.
“Just two,” Dr. Pranav Shukla says, his voice calm in that maddeningly reasonable way.
He’s a friend—knows me well enough to see the way my fists keep clenching, how badly I want to punch something.
“And you need to relax before you go into cardiac shock. Don’t make me give you mouth-to-mouth, because neither of us wants that on our conscience. ”
I ignore his sarcasm. “Is she okay?”
He exhales, running a hand down his face. “She is. The police are with her and her lawyer. Who…by the way, is she single?”
I gape at him. “My mother assaulted my wife, and you’re hitting on her lawyer?”
“She said soon-to-be ex-wife, for the record.” He shrugs, then grins. “I’m just saying, I’ve seen worse. Last week, I had a guy whose mother-in-law drove over his foot. Twice.”
Before I can respond with the fury I’m swallowing down, Katya appears, looking like a storm in heels.
“K, how is she?” My voice cracks. I hate how helpless I feel.
“She’ll live, no thanks to your mother,” Katya snaps. “What the fuck, Aiden? She shoved Mia into a parking meter. There was blood. Everywhere.”
“Blood?” My knees go wobbly. “But you said—”
“She’s okay,” Pranav cuts in. “Got a cut in the back of the head. Head wounds bleed. A lot. But all she needed was two stitches. It’s a superficial cut.”
Katya glares at him like she’d rather stitch him up.
He raises his hands in surrender. “I’ll just…be elsewhere.” Then, with a sudden shift to charm, he turns to Katya. “You’re Katya, right?”
“Why?” she asks, suspicious.
He slides his card into her hand. “Dinner?”
She looks down at the card, sighs. “At least you’re a doctor. My last first date was with a guy who lived in his brother’s basement and freelanced in crypto.”
“I don’t have a brother. I don’t even know what a crypto is.” He bows, and then heads back into the bowels of the emergency room.
“Can I see her?” I ask, trying not to sound desperate.
Katya gives me a withering look. “Shouldn’t you be home? The cops are probably going to be at your mom’s place soon. I hope they arrest her bony ass.”
How do I tell her home is wherever Mia is without having her knee me in the nuts?
Since I don’t have a way of doing that, I say the other thing that’s clawing to get out.
“I don’t give a flying fuck what they do with my mother.
” I release a long, frustrated breath and add, “Actually, scratch that—I would take a small, deeply satisfying measure of pleasure in seeing her cuffed and carted off.”
“Right!” She suppresses a smile.
“They’re not going to arrest her, Katya, you know that, right?” I want to manage her expectations.
Her head moves in a slow, solemn nod. “Yeah, I know. She’s a Winter, and this is Burlington.”
“Where is Mia?” I ask softly.
“Room 12.” She gives me a measured look. “I’m going to bring the car around so she doesn’t have to walk. You’ve got five minutes.”
I find Mia sitting in a chair, a white bandage pressed just above her temple, her hair tucked neatly behind one ear as if she’s trying to make the best of it.
She’s wearing a T-shirt that says Fall Into Burlington scattered with faded autumn leaves, but my eyes snag on the blood—dark, rusted drops staining the denim at her thigh.
My heart seizes.
She’s pale and still impossibly beautiful. My Mia.
I drag in an unsteady breath, my chest tight. “Oh God, baby….”
She looks at me and rolls her eyes. “You look like hell.”
“Two stitches and still trying to roast me.” I crouch in front of her, take her hands in mine. I have to touch her. “I’m so sorry.”
She sighs, leans her head back against the chair. “You didn’t push me, Aiden.”
“I didn’t stop her, either. I’m tired of apologizing to you. Not because I don’t mean it—but because you’ve heard it too often.”
“I’m tired, too,” she whispers.
I bring her hands to my lips and kiss each one, gently, reverently. She lets me. Her skin smells faintly of antiseptic…and Mia. That warm, clean scent that used to be all over our home, our bed, me.
For a few seconds, I just hold her hands. But eventually, she eases them from mine.
I pull a chair next to her, sitting close but not touching. I’m not owed touch anymore.
She nibbles at her lower lip—something she does when she’s uncertain, when her heart wants to speak but her head isn’t sure if it should. For six years marriage, I let those silences pass quietly. I didn’t press, especially when the topic was my family, which it almost always was.
Not this time.
“Tell me,” I insist.
She lets out a slow, careful breath, and meets my eyes. “Would you rather I didn’t press charges? Katya’s the one who’s really mad.”
There’s no anger in her words. Just resignation. Worn-out edges. She’s not seeking revenge—she’s seeking peace. That truth guts me even more.
I shake my head. “No. Don’t back down on my account. She laid her hands on you. She crossed a line. You pressing charges is not vindictive, Mia. It’s justice. My mother deserves whatever’s coming to her.”
She watches me closely, like she’s waiting for a punchline or a pivot, and when I don’t offer one, her brow furrows. “Even if it makes everything messier?”
“She made it messy.” I lean forward slightly. “You didn’t ask for this fight. But you’re not going to be the one who walks away limping while she walks away smug. Not this time.”
Her eyes shine, not with tears, but with…cautious understanding? A crack in the wall, maybe?
After a pause, she explains wearily, “I don’t want to live in battle mode anymore.”
“I know.” I want to reach for her hand again, but I don’t. I don’t want to invade her space. “But sometimes, to live in peace, we have to make sure the people who hurt us know they can’t anymore. And Katya mentioned she’d very much like to have my mother’s bony ass arrested.”
That earns me a faint laugh. I’ll take it.
Tonight, in this ER room, I hope she sees that I’m not just mouthing apologies, but that I’m with her, behind her, in front of her, protecting her.
A nurse comes in and says that Mia is free to leave.
I help her get up from the chair. She seems fine.
Her stance is stable, her walk even. She touches the back of her neck.
I hate that she got hurt. I hate my mother for causing Mia pain.
Mama’s gone off the deep end if she laid hands on my wife, and that, too, in public.
I bend, brush my lips close to Mia’s stitches.
She turns and looks at me questioningly, her lips pursed.
“I once heard you tell your school kids that kissing boo boos makes them better.”
She giggles. Fuck, it sounds good.
When we reach Katya’s car, I open the passenger door and help her in. “All good?” I ask, holding the car door open.
“We got this,” Katya shoots back.
I ignore her and focus on Mia. “So…dinner? Saturday?”
She blinks. “What?”
“I’m asking you out.”
“She just got stitches,” Katya growls.
“Baby?”
Her mouth opens slightly, like I’ve stunned her. “I…ah….”
“Eight dates,” I remind her. “You signed the paperwork.”
She makes a face and tilts her head. The movement makes her wince.
“I’m in pain,” she murmurs, her voice soft, but her eyes glint with mischief.
I wink, my smile crooked. “I’ll see what I can do about that.”
She’s hurting. She’s bruised—inside and out—and I should be the better man, a respectful man who gives her space and softness and time.
But I’m also a desperate man. A man who’s clawing his way back to the only thing that’s ever truly mattered.
So no, I don’t mind taking advantage of the slightest crack in her armor, because I’m not trying to win an argument, I’m trying to win her.
I lean into the car and secure her seatbelt, kiss her cheek, and ignore her hiss.
“This coming Saturday, okay. I’ll pick you up at four.”
I close the car door gently, then tap the roof of Katya’s car.
As they pull away, I stand in the parking lot, already counting the hours—and knowing that I have to head to my parents’ place now and deal with their fuckery.
The Chief of Police, John Frizzell, is in my parents’ living room, looking haggard. Ron Dempsey, the family lawyer, doesn’t look any better.
“Finally, you’re here,” Dad bellows when he sees me. “I told you to control your wife. You didn’t, and now she’s pressing charges against Edith.”
I suppress a smirk.
“Chief. Ron.” I nod in greeting. “Dad, Mom physically assaulted Mia.”
“That’s an exaggeration.” Mom folds her arms.
“It was an altercation.” Gianna walks in then and sets a glass of wine in front of Mom, because obviously, she needs alcohol in this situation. “You need to ask Mia not to do this.” My sister sits next to my mother. My father is on her other side.
The chief and Ron are sitting across from them on a matching sofa. I’m still in the doorway, like I haven’t decided if I should go in or not.
“If Mia drops the charges, all of this goes away,” Chief Frizzell says.
I nod slowly, as if I’m considering it. “What do you mean by all this?” I ask.
“It means”—Dad stands up, he does that when he goes into bully mode—“I won’t sue your bitch for slander.”
I walk up to my father and grab his shirt.
He glares at me, his eyes burning with fury. “What the fuck—”
“I told you not to call her that. You disparage my wife again, and they’ll be throwing me into a cell for physically assaulting you.” I shove him lightly, releasing his shirt. He falls back on his ass onto the sofa.
I look around the room. Everyone is shell-shocked.
“I came here to let you know, Mom, that when Mia asked me if she shouldn’t press charges, I told her to do it.”
“What?” Mom cries out.
“Aiden,” Gianna squeals.
“Now, I want you to hear me, because this is the last time I’m setting foot in this house.
Stay the fuck away from Mia. You see her, you walk across the street to avoid subjecting her to your presence.
” I turn to face a pale Ron and a Chief who looks even more stressed than he did five minutes ago.
“John, I hear there is video evidence of the assault.”
Chief Frizzell notices my calling him by his first name, like my father does—it’s my not-so-subtle way of telling him that I am now the head of Winter Financial.
“Ah…yes, Aiden, there is.”
“Good.” I look over my shoulder at my family. “Good luck in court.”
And then, I walk out of my parents’ house and their oppressive presence.