Section 34
Silence
Lucky
The moment the door clicks shut, I sense it.
The air in the apartment slackens, like someone released a held breath. When Gia is here, the corners of the room go taut—every lamp, every framed photo hums under her presence, bracing for impact.
Now the silence echoes.
Diablo sits by the threshold, paws tucked neatly beneath him. His eyes are fixed on the brass handle, unblinking, as though she might materialize again if he stares hard enough.
He doesn’t whine.
He just waits.
I crouch behind him. “Yeah,” I murmur. “I noticed.”
My phone vibrates on the coffee table.
One message.
don’t follow
She didn’t even bother with punctuation.
The screen goes dark.
I sit on the edge of the couch. The springs groan under my weight. Frank moved faster than I thought he would.
I should’ve told her.
That thought has been circling for days—hovering at the edge of every quiet moment. Every time she looked at me like I was something steady. Every time she let me in a little further.
I always found a reason to wait.
Timing.
Stability.
She “had enough on her plate”.
Turns out the only thing I was protecting was myself.
I reach for the helmet by the door and cradle it in my lap. A history of micro-impacts and quick exits. I trace the crack in the visor with my thumb.
Armor.
Or a delay tactic.
She didn’t ask.
That’s the part that twists.
Gia Serrano doesn’t deal in reassurances. She deals in facts. In leverage. In clean cuts. If she needs to remove something, she removes it.
But she didn’t need to ask.
Frank did it for her.
Strategically. With witnesses.
He wanted it to sit in the room after she left. Wanted it to ripple outward in whispers.
She’s sleeping with one of Valenti’s orphans.
She hired the man who tried to take Sylvie.
Long con.
I unlock my phone and open the encrypted folder I haven’t touched in months.
Evidence of who I was.
Sometimes I think I kept them because I knew this day would come.
I scroll until I find the one Frank would’ve used.
Surveillance angle. Grainy. My helmet, and my hand at the back of a woman so furious she looks edited.
Sylvie Hart.
The morning I carried her out under Valenti’s orders.
No questions.
I wasn’t the one holding the knife. I wasn’t shouting instructions. I stood at the door and made sure no one interrupted.
I told myself that mattered.
That being “not the worst one in the room” counted for something.
It doesn’t.
It just means someone else had dirtier hands.
I remember the cold in the air. The way Sylvie looked at me when we shut the van doors behind her—defiant. Even then.
I close the file.
Gia doesn’t tolerate hidden variables. And by waiting—by letting myself enjoy being the man she thought I was—I handed Frank the cleanest blade he could ask for.
Diablo shifts, resting his head on my knee.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I know.”
Every instinct in me wants to suit up. To get on the bike. To find the estate and stand outside the gates until she decides what to do with me.
But that would be about my panic.
Not her choice.
I set the helmet on the counter and look at it.
It was supposed to separate past from present. Instead, it just let me postpone the conversation.
Her coffee mug is still on the table. Lip print faint against the rim.
The mattress still dips slightly where she slept.
The basil plant catches the window light like it believes in something.
If she asks, I’ll tell her everything. When she asks, because I’ve got to believe we’ll get to that point.
Diablo nudges my hand until I scratch behind his ears.
“She’s not weak,” I tell him.
His tail thumps.
“No,” I agree. “She’s not.”
The apartment stays quiet.
Suspended between what was and what’s coming.
For once, I don’t try to outrun it.
If she asks, I’ll tell her the whole truth.