24. Lorenzo #3
Victoria presses the bloody napkin between both hands and keeps her eyes on the table.
“A family,” she says, and her voice breaks around the last word. “Someone I trust. Someone who isn’t part of this. Someone I haven’t spoken to in a long time.”
Her breath catches.
“I needed to see them. I needed to talk to someone who knew me before all of this. Before you. Before this house. Before I became something people could lock away.”
The word hits me.
Family.
Milwaukee.
Not escape only.
A destination.
A person.
A door she chose for a reason she is still not ready to fully give me.
I look at the mud on her shoes.
The blood on her hand.
The tear drying on her cheek.
This woman crossed my gate, reached a road, climbed into a stranger’s truck, stood beneath station lights with my name burning behind her, and still, even now, she thinks there is a world where disappearing from me is possible.
I should be furious.
I should remind her what happens to things that belong to me when they try to vanish.
Instead, I reach across the table.
She flinches before she can stop herself.
I take her injured hand anyway.
Carefully.
The napkin is soaked through. The cut across her palm is shallow, but dirty. She must have caught herself on gravel or glass.
Victoria stares at my fingers around her wrist.
She looks more afraid of the gentleness than she ever looked of my anger.
“That needs cleaning,” I say.
Her eyes lift to mine.
“I answered you. You said I could call her.”
“I said we would discuss it.”
Her expression changes.
Not fear.
Not defeat.
Anger.
“Lorenzo.”
My name from her mouth is raw, reckless, almost broken.
I tighten my hold just enough to still her.
“Careful.”
Her breath shakes.
“No.” Her voice trembles, but she does not look away. “You asked for the truth. I gave it to you. If someone wanted me outside your walls, then my mother could be part of this too. Or she could be in danger because of me. Because of you. Because of whatever this is.”
Her chin slightly lifts.
Fiercely.
Stupidly brave.
“I am afraid of you,” she whispers. “But I am more afraid of not knowing whether she is safe.”
For several seconds, I only look at her.
Not because she ran.
Not because men want to take her.
Because even terrified, exhausted, bleeding, and cornered in a chapel with a man everyone else fears, she still knows where to press.
My thumb rests against the inside of her wrist.
Her pulse beats hard beneath my skin.
“Your mother is alive,” I say.
The anger leaves her so quickly it nearly takes her with it.
Her mouth opens.
No sound comes out.
“She was seen this morning at 8:12 leaving her house. She bought coffee. She spoke to a neighbour. She returned home at 8:41.”
Victoria’s eyes fill.
Relief hits her like pain.
“You had her watched?”
“Yes.”
Her face twists.
“You had my mother watched?”
“You are sitting here breathing because I watch everything that can be used against you.”
She pulls against my grip.
I let her.
Not because she wins.
Because I choose to.
She cradles her injured hand against her chest.
Satisfaction moves through me.
There.
That is the girl who tried to run.
That is the girl who might survive this house.
Her breathing catches.
I stand.
This time, she does not flinch.
“Mateo will bring a phone,” I say. “You will call her from this room. You will tell her you are safe. You will not mention where you are, who I am, what happened today, or Milwaukee.”
Victoria stares at me as if she does not trust the mercy.
Good.
She should not.
“And after that?” she asks.
“After that, a doctor cleans your hand.”
“And then?”
I look at the ticket.
Milwaukee.
A city she chose.
A place someone may have wanted her to reach.
A place with a person waiting behind a name she has not yet given me.
The danger is not the destination.
The danger is not knowing who opened the door.
“Then I find out who opened my door,” I say.
Victoria’s voice is very small when she asks, “And me?”
I look back at her.
She is pale, dirty, wounded, and still trying not to beg.
Mine to protect.
Mine to keep alive.
For now, that is enough.
“You,” I say, “will stop looking for doors.”
Her lips part.
I lean down, close enough that she has to tilt her head back to see me.
“Because the next one you find standing open,” I murmur, “might not lead to a train station.”
I pause.
“Or it might lead somewhere far worse.”
Her eyes shine with fear.
And something else. One she hates.
Something I do not allow myself to name.
“The problem is not Milwaukee, Victoria.”
Her breath catches.
“It could have been anywhere.”
I let the words settle.
“The problem is that neither of us knows whether someone forgot to close the door…”
My eyes hold hers.
“…or whether someone opened it for you.”
Real fear flashes across her face.
Not of me.
Of the possibility that every step she thought was her own may have been guided by hands she never saw.
I straighten and walk to the door.
Behind me, Victoria remains seated beneath the stained-glass light, one hand bleeding, one secret given, and the rest of her still locked behind her teeth.
For now.