Chapter 15
VALENTINA
When I leave Sebastian’s office, my whole body feels like one big exposed nerve. That couldn’t have gone worse. I’m used to dealing with disasters, but this was an atomic bomb. There’s no coming back from this.
I can’t believe Nico. I can’t believe he actually told Sebastian not to sleep with me.
Here I was, avoiding Sebastian to spare my brother’s feelings, and now all I can think is that he’s just another man in my life trying to control my every move.
Who the fuck does he think I am? Who the fuck does he think he is? I’m fuming.
I’m moving too fast and not fast enough at the same time, heels cracking against the polished floor while my brain replays every terrible second of that conversation in useless, nauseating loops. I make it to the elevator and jab the button harder than necessary.
The doors open immediately, which feels like the only small mercy I’m going to get today. I step inside alone and hit the lobby button, then stand there in the mirrored box trying not to cry out of sheer frustration.
This went badly. Really badly.
Maybe when I’m in a better headspace, I can acknowledge that I didn’t exactly handle it well.
Sebastian was trying to be reasonable in his own annoying way, but it came off as interrogation.
I know I responded out of my own trauma, but that doesn’t ease any of my anger.
All I could hear in his questions was control.
The elevator doors open into the lobby and I walk straight through without seeing any of the people around me. The whole building feels too bright. Too polished. Too full of normal life continuing while mine has cracked right down the middle.
Outside, the morning sun is sharp enough to hurt my eyes. Downtown traffic roars and honks and glitters in the heat. I climb into my car with shaking hands and sit there gripping the wheel before I can make myself start it.
I should call Gia.
I should probably call Nico, too, though the idea of hearing his voice right now makes me want to scream.
I know he was trying to protect me. I know that.
He’s been nothing but supportive my entire life.
Still, it’s not his place to step in where he wasn’t invited, and he should know me well enough by now not to get involved without being asked.
All he managed to do today was make me feel incredibly small.
I don’t call either of them. I just want to go home, lock the door, shut the blinds, turn my phone off, crawl into bed, and disappear for a few hours.
Maybe it’s not the most emotionally mature plan, but at this point I don’t particularly care.
I’ve already done the hard thing. I told Sebastian.
He knows. Nico knows. They can deal with the fallout while I take care of my own mental health for a while.
The whole way home, I run different scenarios of how the conversation could have gone. I consider whether there was anything Sebastian could have said or done to make it better. I arrive at the annoying conclusion that he really did react well, all things considered.
It’s an annoying truth. I’m the one who freaked out when I shouldn’t have. I’m the one who escalated. At the time, it felt very important not to get steamrolled. I walked in there with a crisis, and I wanted to make it all about me.
Unfortunately, like it or not, he’s involved now too. He’s allowed to have his own feelings and respond however he wants, and the mature part of me knows that. The petty part of me still wants to punch him in the face. Nico probably deserves it more, though.
By the time I turn onto my street, my head is pounding. No matter how I replay it, I keep arriving at the same conclusion. I’m going to have to do the thing I hate most and apologize to a man.
I’m so consumed by my own thoughts that I don’t notice right away that something is off when I pull into my driveway. I’m all the way to the door when I realize it’s open. Not just unlocked. Open several inches.
My heart starts pounding so loud in my ears it drowns out everything else.
I try to rationalize it. Maybe I left it like that this morning.
I was distracted and keyed up so it’s entirely possible I didn’t shut it and lock it the way I normally do.
Maybe the housekeeper came by and didn’t pull it fully closed when she finished.
Except I know in my gut that none of that holds up. I always check my locks twice. That’s been my ritual for weeks. There’s no chance in hell I would have left my door unlocked and open. And my housekeeper is beyond reliable.
I stand there staring at the narrow dark line between the door and the frame, and I have to make a quick decision.
It’s not even noon. The sun is high in the sky and there are young mothers walking down the street with their children.
That should feel comforting. The most dangerous crimes happen at night, right?
Unfortunately, I know better. I know how terrifying the daytime can be when you’re dealing with a dangerous, powerful man. No time of day is safer than any other.
Adrian is in New York. That’s been my mantra for weeks. But what if? No. I don’t even let myself go down that road.
Every instinct in my body is screaming at me to get back in the car and leave, but another part of me, the stubborn, furious part, needs to take control of this situation. I need to check my house for myself, to see if this was more than forgetfulness.
I push the door open slowly. “Hello?”
My voice sounds too thin in the quiet.
No one answers, of course. That would be a really shitty intruder. I shove the door open hard, just to make sure no one’s hiding behind it. It hits the wall with a thud loud enough to guarantee a dent.
Cautiously, I step inside. The entryway looks normal, untouched, apart from the few leaves that have blown in.
My home office setup by the window is the same, monitors still off the way I left them.
The framed print above them hangs straight.
My keys bowl sits where it always does. Nothing overturned or smashed.
No obvious sign of forced entry or frantic searching.
Still, something is wrong.
I know it immediately, the way animals sense weather before it breaks.
There’s an energy in the house that feels wrong.
Something intangible and indefinable. I step inside on shaking legs and close the door behind me out of reflex, then hate myself for it because now I feel trapped without a quick exit.
“Hello?” I say again, louder.
Still no answer. I press my back against the door so no one can sneak up behind me. It’s an instinct from another time. I stand there listening.
I hear the faint hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen. The soft hiss of central air. A car passing outside. No footsteps. No movement. No intruder waiting in the dark the way my worst nightmares conjure.
Still, the sense of violation is instant and total.
I move farther into the house, each step careful, sick with dread.
The living room is exactly as I left it.
Throw blanket folded over the arm of the couch.
Two unread mailers on the coffee table. My laptop charger coiled where I dropped it last night. Then my eyes catch on the pillows.
One of them is angled wrong. The lumbar pillow I always leave centered on the sofa is propped up vertically on its side.
My stomach turns. I look toward the kitchen. The barstool nearest the island is pulled out by an inch or two. The bowl of lemons on the counter has one turned stem-side up when I know I left the whole arrangement facing outward.
I’m meticulous about everything in my home, a habit I’ve developed since running my business, and my things have been deliberately moved.
In an instant, I know it wasn’t a burglary and it wasn’t an accident.
Someone who knows me well enough to know how neurotic I am about my space has deliberately rearranged my things. It’s a carefully crafted message.
My mind goes immediately, sickeningly, to Adrian.
This is exactly the kind of thing he used to do in New York when he wanted to punish me without leaving bruises in obvious places.
He’d create small violations. Subtle ones.
Moving something on my vanity and waiting to see if I noticed.
Entering a room after I’d cleaned it and disturbing one thing just enough to make me feel crazy.
Once, after a fight so bad I locked myself in the guest room for an hour just to breathe, I came back to the kitchen and found every single cabinet door in the apartment hanging open.
When I stared at them, he only smiled.
“You’re so tense lately, baby,” he’d said. “Maybe you forgot to close them.”
That had been the worst part of being with Adrian in the end.
Not even the physical violence. It was the mental manipulation.
He was always gaslighting me, making reality feel slippery under my feet until I wasn’t sure I could trust my own mind.
Did I leave the lamp on? Did I move the vase?
Did I say the thing he claims I said? Did I lock the door, or do I just think I did because I need to believe I’m not losing my mind?
Since I left him, I’ve been so much more deliberate about every decision I make. I check myself. I make mental notes. Nothing I do is by accident, and it’s because he made me doubt my own sanity. He’s the only person who would bother to do this.
I back out of my own living room so fast I almost trip over the rug.
I don’t need to inspect the rest of the house. I don’t need to see my bedroom or the office or the bathroom to know this was a carefully crafted message. Either he’s here, or he’s paid someone to do it. He knows where I live. Even after everything, he still knows exactly how to get to me.
I rush outside so quickly I don’t remember pulling the door shut behind me. By the time I get back into the car, I’m shaking so hard, I fumble my phone twice before I can unlock it.
I call Nico. I don’t even care that I’m pissed at him. He answers on the first ring.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” he answers warily, but I cut him off.
“He was in my house.”
He goes silent immediately, and I hear him take a sharp breath.
“What?” he asks sharply. “Who was in your house?”
“Adrian,” I say in a rush. “He was in my house and he messed with my things. He wanted me to know he can still get to me here. I know that sounds crazy—”
“It doesn’t sound crazy,” he says immediately. “Are you inside?”
“No. I’m in the car.”
“Good. Stay there. I’m coming. Stay in the car. Lock the doors. I’m on my way.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious, Val. Do not go back into that house alone.”
“I won’t.”
He hangs up before I can say anything else, which means he’s already moving. Even though I’ve already locked the car doors, I hit the lock button again just to reassure myself. I hate this. I hate that he can still do this to me.
He’ll never let me get over him. He’ll make sure I spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.
Nico arrives within fifteen minutes, but the wait feels endless. When his black SUV pulls into my driveway, I finally feel like I can breathe. He knocks on my window and I reluctantly open the door. He crouches beside me so he’s at eye level.
“Are you okay?”
I nod automatically. Then shake my head because we both know that’s a lie.
“Tell me everything.”
I do. I tell him about the open door, about the things moved just slightly enough to make me feel crazy.
He nods once, processing. Then he looks up sheepishly. “Don’t be mad.”
I’m confused by his response when I hear another car pull into my driveway. I know before I look that it’s Sebastian. It’s strange because I would think he’s the last person I want to see, but I suddenly feel safer in a way I can’t explain.