Chapter 51
Savannah
I’m shaking, not because I’m weak, but because my body remembers what men like that do. Because it almost happened again.
The air still smells like exhaust and cold metal. Like the inside of a trunk. Like the kind of place where nobody hears you scream. My ears are still ringing. I can still hear the van door slamming. My skin won’t stop buzzing. It still feels like the ground is moving under my feet.
Hands. Weight. Breath too close. A van door opening. A man thinking I will freeze because freezing is what I used to do.
But I didn’t freeze.
I fought. I bit. My teeth hurt. My jaw aches from where I held on and would not let go, and I’m proud of that.
My mouth tastes like adrenaline and copper.
My tongue keeps checking the sore spot inside my cheek because my body still doesn’t trust that it’s over.
My ribs are tight. My lungs keep pulling in air too fast.
I blink and the room tilts for a second.
Rafa keeps me moving. He doesn’t touch my wrists. He doesn’t grab my arm. He stays beside me and gives me space. Like he understands that keeping me safe also means not manhandling me. “Breathe,” he says low, like he is speaking to a feral animal that might bolt.
I hate that part of me hears it that way. I hate that part of me is still an animal sometimes. I nod anyway because he’s right. Because I’m still here. Because I can still pull air into my lungs.
My diary is in my hands. I’m gripping it so hard my fingers hurt. The cover is bent where I crushed it. My thumb is smeared with dirt, maybe from the alley, maybe from someone else’s glove, maybe from the ground when I fell and got back up.
The safe house door is right in front of us, and I don’t know whether to feel relieved or sick.
A hallway. Neutral walls. A carpet that looks clean but smells like bleach. A humming light overhead. Too bright. Too quiet.
Quiet doesn’t make me feel safe. Quiet usually means something bad is about to happen.
Rafa leans toward the keypad. He doesn’t make me do it alone. He stays close enough that I know he’s there without making me feel crowded. The door opens.
Inside the safe room, the women lock the door behind us. Click. It’s a small sound, but my body reacts fast. My shoulders jump. My stomach drops. My pulse hits hard in my throat.
One of the women, with short hair and round eyes, doesn’t move toward me. She doesn’t touch me. She just puts her hand on the door and says, “You’re inside. You’re safe.”
Safe. The word doesn’t sit right. It feels false.
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Because being inside doesn’t mean I feel safe. My body is still in the alley. Still on that cold pavement. Still hearing shoes drag. Still feeling a hand reach for me like I’m something they can take.
Rafa points toward the couch. “Sit if you want,” he says. “Or stand. Your call.”
My throat tightens so hard it hurts.
I stand. My knees are shaking and I hate it and I refuse to let them see me collapse, so I stand anyway.
The women move like professionals. One checks the window seal. One checks the secondary lock. One flips a switch on a small device near the outlet and the room gives a faint click as something powers up, maybe a jammer, maybe a backup.
Rafa shifts his body slightly so he is not blocking the door, so I’m not trapped. I notice. I notice everything. That is what survival taught me.
My diary is still in my hands, still mine.
Rafa clears his throat once. I look at him and he holds up a folded page.
His face is flat, but his eyes are sharp.
“This was in your hand,” he says. “When we pulled you back.”
My stomach turns because the page is not mine. Not my handwriting. The paper is smooth. The fold is precise. The corners are crisp.
A message folded like a gift.
. Somebody got close enough to leave a message. A threat.
My mouth goes dry.
“Don’t open it,” I whisper before I even think.
Rafa’s eyes shift to me. He nods. “No one’s opening it,” he says right away. “Not me. Not them.”
My chest tightens because he understood without me having to explain it. Because he knows some things are worse than bruises.
I swallow.
“Give it to Gabriel,” I say.
Rafa doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t ask if I’m sure. He doesn’t ask if I want to read it first. He just says, “Yes, ma’am.”
My chest aches because words matter. Because respect is not soft. Respect is armor.
One of the women steps closer, slow, palms visible like she is approaching something that might bite.
“Do you need water?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say.
My voice doesn’t sound like me. It sounds like the part of me that learned to keep it quiet when I was scared.
The woman nods once and goes to the small kitchenette. She pours water into a plastic cup so it will not shatter if I drop it.
I hate that detail. I love that detail.
I take it with trembling fingers. The cup sweats cold against my palm.
“Your jaw,” the other woman says, voice low. “Are you hurt?”
I touch my jaw without meaning to. Tender. Sore. A deep ache where my teeth clenched and my body chose violence instead of obedience.
“I bit him,” I say.
Rafa’s mouth twitches once, not a smile, something like approval.
“You did,” he says. “You fought.”
My eyes burn. I look down at my diary so nobody sees it, so nobody sees the way pride and terror can live in the same body.
Boot steps sound in the hall. Heavy. Familiar.
Every muscle in me reacts like a switch flipped. My spine goes straight. My stomach drops.
Then the door opens.
Gabriel.
His presence hits the room before his boots fully cross the threshold. His eyes find me immediately.
His face is controlled, but his hands flex once like he is holding himself back from crushing the entire world.
Rafa steps aside. One of the women says, “She’s inside. Door’s locked. No contact.”
Gabriel doesn’t answer her. He just keeps looking at me, checking my face, my breathing, all of me, like he needs to make sure nothing is broken.
I stand. My legs wobble. I hate that they wobble, but I stand anyway.
Gabriel crosses the room and stops in front of me, close enough that I can smell him. Leather. Gun oil. Underneath it, something darker. Something I only smell on him when he has had to decide who lives.
He doesn’t grab me. He doesn’t order me closer. He just waits and lets me decide.
My throat tightens so hard it hurts. Because nobody gave me a choice when I was a child. Because nobody gave me a choice when they put their hands on me in a van. Because choice is not a luxury.
Choice is a lifeline.
I step into him.
I press my forehead to his chest and breathe him in. His shirt is warm under my cheek. My fingers curl into the front of his coat.
He is the one man in this life who looks at me and sees a person first.
His hand slides to the back of my head. His palm covers my braid like a shield.
He whispers, “I felt it. I felt them try.”
My throat burns.
“I didn’t disappear,” I whisper.
His breath catches. A small break in the control he usually keeps locked down. His arms tighten around me, possessive and protective, but he still leaves me room to pull away.
He pulls back just enough to look at me. His eyes are dark but not cruel, not with me. He looks over my face carefully, checking for damage, taking in every bruise like he’s already deciding what to do to the men who caused it.
“Look at me,” he says.
I do. My chin trembles. I hate it, but I do.
His thumb brushes once over the corner of my mouth, gentle.
“You bit him,” he says quietly.
I nod. My jaw aches. My teeth ache. My pride aches too. It feels too big for my chest.
“I fought,” I whisper.
“Yes,” he says. “You did.”
He looks like he wants to say more, like he wants to say he’s sorry, like he wants to say he should have been there. But apologies aren’t his language. Promises are. Consequences are.
He watches me for a beat, then his voice drops lower.
“Say it again.”
My breath shakes, but my spine holds.
“I didn’t disappear,” I repeat.
My mouth still tastes like blood, but the words feel true when I say them.
Gabriel nods once.
Rafa steps forward carefully and holds out the folded page. “Foundit in her hand,” Rafa says. “Not hers.”
Gabriel’s eyes move to the paper and his jaw clenches so hard I hear it. He takes the page like it matters. Like it proves everything. Like someone is about to die over it.
I whisper, “Don’t read it here.”
Gabriel’s gaze snaps to me immediately. “I won’t,” he says. “Not here.”
He tucks the folded page into the inside pocket of his coat, then lowers his mouth to my forehead and kisses me.
He speaks low, like a promise he intends to keep.
“They do not get you back. Ever.”
My eyes burn.
“They were close,” I whisper.
“I know,” he says. “Too close.”
My fingers clutch his coat tighter. “Someone touched my Diary.”
Gabriel goes still, a dangerous kind of still. His eyes turn black in a way that twists my stomach, not fear of him, fear of what he is about to do to whoever made that true.
He leans his forehead to mine.
“Listen to me,” he says, slow and firm. “You are mine. And they do not get to put their hands on you.”
I swallow hard. My throat is raw.
“Okay,” I whisper.
* * *
Dear Diary,
I fought.
That matters.
I bit.
That matters too.
My jaw hurts.
My teeth ache.
I still don’t regret it.
I used to believe survival meant silence.
Now I know survival can be loud.
It can be standing when your knees shake.
It can be hearing a door click and not folding in half.
I am finished being taken.
Finished.
Done.
Over my dead body.
Or theirs.