17. Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
Lina
Sleep didn’t come easy. It arrived in shallow waves, never deep enough to pull me under. I woke before the alarm, my body heavy and my mind already racing.
Pain announces itself in places I didn’t know could ache so fiercely. My hands, knees, legs—swollen and sensitive. Even the muscles along my back protest when I sit up, a dull echo of concrete, panic, and force.
I swing my feet to the floor and wince, breathing through it the way I’ve trained myself to when my body feels foreign.
I go straight to the bathroom.
The mirror even seems to flinch.
Bruises bloom along my arms—purple fingerprints, angry and unmistakable around my wrists and under my jaw. Scrapes cover me from head to toe. Evidence of impact. Of proximity. Of hands that should have never touched me again.
There’s no panic. No tears. Just a hollow quiet where emotion should be. Numbness—like my body decided to absorb this before my heart could weigh in.
I brace my palms on the sink and breathe.
Sleep hadn’t softened anything. If anything, it pronounced it. All night, my mind replayed the same fragments—his grip, how easily he occupied space that wasn’t his. The familiarity of it makes my skin crawl.
And beneath the numbness, something else begins to surface. Anger. Slow and venomous. A red-hot knot lodged deep in my chest, pulling tighter with each remembered betrayal.
Angry that those hands were allowed near me for all those years. Angry that I stayed. Angry that after everything it took to rebuild my life, he still managed to breach my wall.
When I left him, I promised myself one thing with absolute certainty: He will never touch me again.
For five years, that promise held. Until last night.
My body doesn’t only remember his face and voice. It remembers force. The fist in my hair. The sudden yank—dragging me down before my brain could register what was happening. One second upright, the next slammed onto concrete, breath knocked from my lungs.
This wasn’t a raised voice, or a slammed door. This was gravity weaponized. Being pinned flat. His weight crushing down, heavier, stronger, inescapable. The cold realization that strength means nothing when someone has leverage and mass on their side.
No one prepares you for how quickly helplessness arrives. For the humiliation of your limbs being useless beneath someone else’s weight. Powerlessness doesn’t announce itself. It just happens.
And that’s what makes the anger tighten further.
I survived him once. I rebuilt. I constructed a life where he no longer exists in my orbit. And still—the past reached.
The impact of that revelation is heavy. It reminds me how easily history can lunge when you’re not looking.
I straighten and meet my own eyes in the mirror. I see fury, fury at being reminded of something I already conquered.
He does not get to undo that—reclaim territory—past or present. And he absolutely does not get to steal the happiness I fought for after him.
I didn’t come this far to fold.
I blink my eyes as fragments replay in my head. The heels. God, the fucking heels. The way they destabilized me, slowed me down, turned instinct into a liability.
If I’d been in workout clothes—leggings, sneakers, hair secured—I know perfectly well how it would have gone. I would’ve been able to escape him—had space to run.
Instead, I was in heels, a coat barely shielding lingerie, fully exposed.
That may have been the worst part—not the fear, but the vulnerability. Being caught in the wrong version of myself when I needed to be formidable.
But that version does not define today.
I turn from the mirror and keep moving—because being still has never saved me. So I decide to go to work.
Staying home feels like surrender, and I’ve surrendered enough for one lifetime.
As I move through my routine, slower than usual, my thoughts shift—not only to Cole, but to Alex. The steadiness in his voice. The precision in his movements. The way chaos didn’t seem to rattle him.
Gratitude fills me. Something that feels comforting.
I leave the house and head to the bakery, every step reminding me of what I endured—and what I refuse to let claim me.
I’m scraped. Bruised. Sore in places I’d rather not catalog. But I’m upright. And for today, that’s enough.
Last night I texted Val and the team that I would be in late. I asked if they could be there early to get everything started.
I saw all the messages coming through in response but didn’t reply. I needed time.
The moment I step inside the shop, the air shifts. I’m later than usual. Nearly six. Whispered conversations stall as soon as they see me. Phones tilt downward a fraction too late, screens still glowing.
“Lina,” Kay says, eyes wide. “Are you okay? My God—what happened? TikTok, IG, Facebook…they’re lit up about last night.”
My stomach drops. Online?
Well shit balls!
Videos of the shop flooded social media overnight.
Grainy clips of flashing lights. Police cars blocking the street. Fire trucks parked crookedly as they skidded into place. An ambulance pulled right up front, hazard lights blinking like a warning.
Someone caught footage of me sitting on the ledge of the ambulance truck, a gray emergency blanket wrapped around my shoulders while an EMT cleaned my hands.
The comments are unhinged—
Someone tried to break in.
The owner got attacked by a thief.
There was a shootout near the shop. I heard gunshots.
Speculation stacked on speculation, each version more dramatic—and more wrong—than the last.
Val doesn’t wait long.
She corners me near the counter, eyes blazing, phone still clutched in her hand like she’s been staring at it since dawn. “Okay,” she says. “What the hell happened last night?”
She doesn’t wait for me to answer.
“I tried to pull the Ring footage,” she adds, lowering her voice. “But it wouldn’t let me. It says it’s restricted.”
I give a reluctant nod. “I locked it.”
Her brows knit together. “You what?”
“I didn’t want you seeing it before I could explain,” I say gently. “Not like that. Not without context.”
Val exhales, scrubbing a hand down her face. “Lina, I woke up to half the town buzzing about our shop. I couldn’t see what happened. I had no certainty if someone attempted to force entry or if—“ her voice cracks, briefly. “If you were okay. I tried calling and texting you, but nothing.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I meant to text you last night with more information, but I needed time to process it all. I locked the video because I needed you to hear from me what happened. I really am sorry.”
She studies my face, searching for something—panic, cracks, anything that tells her how bad this really is.
“Tell me everything.” Val’s arms are crossed, pissed that I kept her in the dark.
“Okay,” I reply. “But not through a grainy video and motion alerts. Come on.”
Val’s shoulders drop a fraction. The fire in her eyes cools into something heavier. Concern.
“Okay…” she says, giving me space to breathe.
I sigh. “We need to talk. All of us.” I say loudly.
Kay freezes mid-milk pour. Joey stops refilling cups. Donna hops down from the book ladder.
That gets everyone moving.
We gather in the back—staff, partners, the people who deserve the truth.
Someone closes the door. Someone else turns off the music. The room seems smaller, tighter, like everyone instinctively knows this isn’t gossip.
I don’t sugarcoat it. I don’t dramatize it either.
“It wasn’t a robbery,” I say. “It was my ex-husband.”
Silence swallows the room.
Val blinks. “Cole?” The name lands sharp. “Why the fuck—“
“He showed up drunk,” I continue. “Outside the shop. He wanted me to go with him or something—and when I wouldn’t—he assaulted me.”
Val’s face drains of color. “That asshole!”
“Not…sexually. I mean…he did put his hands on me, pushed me, pulled my hair, and knocked me to the ground. So much happened,” I say evenly. “The police were called. He was arrested.”
“What the fuck,“ Val breathes, the words barely contained.
“Oh my God,” Kay whispers, hand flying to her mouth.
Joey mutters, “That son of a—“ and stops himself when he sees me.
Val steps closer, eyes scanning me like she’s only now seeing the bruises. “Jesus, Lina. Are you okay?”
“I’m sore. Scraped up. But I fought back and even landed a good headbutt.”
Kay lets out a shaky breath. “You’re kind of badass,” she says, nearly a whisper.
Val’s jaw tightens. “I’m going to kill—.”
“Val—,” I say knowingly.
“No,” she snaps. “No, you can’t ‘Val’ me. That man nearly—“ She breaks off, dragging a hand through her hair. “After everything he’s already done?”
Donna shakes her head. “I knew something was off about him when he used to come in here. He was always watching and hovering.”
“Yeah, I hated that guy,” Joey adds. “He had weird energy.”
I inhale. “There’s more.”
That gets everyone’s attention.