46. Chapter 46
Chapter forty-six
Lina
Isit with everything Alex has told me, allowing myself to absorb it instead of pushing it away.
And the strangest part? None of it scares me.
That realization makes me wonder if this is something I should unpack with my therapist—the way trauma has woven itself so deeply into my life that danger no longer registers the way it probably should. I’ve lived so long in survival mode that chaos feels familiar, almost…relatable.
Part of me knows what I’m supposed to do here. This is the point where I thank him for his honesty, stand up, and walk away before anything solid has a chance to form.
This is the moment that usually confirms every reason I stopped wanting anything past casual in the first place. The proof. The cautionary tale. Because relationships have never gone well for me.
I’ve already lived through control disguised as love, through promises that curdled into expectations, scrutiny and suffocation. I’ve done commitment that felt like a trap. And after all of that, the smarter choice—the safer one—has always been distance. Fun. Temporary. Easy to walk away from.
So every rational part of me should be saying fuck this. Confirming this is why people like me don’t do serious.
And yet…in the span of days, not months, not years, Alex and I have connected in ways I never did with flings. Or even with the men I once believed I was building a life with.
That alone should scare me, should make me question whether this is trauma bonding, adrenaline, or familiarity masquerading as intimacy.
But none of that captures what this is. This is balance.
Like my constant rocking boat met something steady enough to hold on to—not by force, not by dominance, but by presence. By truth. By calm so consistent it doesn’t need to announce itself.
That’s the part that unsettles me. Because the facts are what they are.
Alex kills and interrogates for a living. He has ties to the mob—whether he wants them or not. There are real risks here.
I have a business. A family. Friends who matter to me. A life I fought like hell to build.
And yet…there’s another truth I can’t ignore.
This connection with him—whatever it is—feels unavoidable. Like gravity. Like something I stepped into without realizing how deep it ran until it was already wrapped around me.
It’s almost surreal. Like one of the books I read late at night, the ones where danger and desire blur into something intoxicating. Except this isn’t fiction. This is my life.
And what unsettles me most isn’t fear—it’s how drawn I am to him because of who he is, not despite it.
Alex is dominant in all the right ways. Grounded. Certain. Protective without overpowering. He doesn’t try to own me or dim me or keep me small. He wants me as I am—piercing edges, stubborn streak and all.
He gives me space to stand on my own. And when I need him? He’s there. Solid. Unmoving. Not hovering like I’m fragile. Not stepping in unless I ask. And that matters to me more than I want to admit.
I’ve lived with men who confused dominance with ownership. With men who mistook love for emotional entrenchment.
Alex trusts my instincts. Respects my autonomy. He doesn’t take my agency because he can. And maybe that’s why this doesn’t register as a red flag.
It feels like a choice. My choice. A curiously daring one, sure. Complicated. Messy—absolutely.
But I’ve never been afraid of complexity. I’ve lived inside it my whole life.
So I sit here, weighing logic against instinct, safety against connection. Whatever this is—whatever he is—he doesn’t leave me powerless. He sees me.
And right now, that’s not something I’m willing to give up easily.
“Oddly…your past doesn’t scare me,” I say.
Fear, for me, was never a warning signal. It was a tool. Something you learned to mute so you could keep functioning.
That’s why the things most people flinch at never found a place in me. Spiders. Snakes. Heights. Dark water. Enclosed spaces. None of it registers as danger the way it does for others.
My body learned early to save its alarm system for threats that could actually end me. Everything else is noise.
That lesson came to me young.
When you grow up inside instability, your instincts rewire themselves around it. I didn’t grow up learning how to feel safe. I grew up learning how to stay upright.
Alex looks at me, his attention sharpening, his body going still as if he senses what’s coming.
“Alex…” My voice comes quieter now, stripped of the sharpness I usually hide behind. “Do you have some sort of file on me?”
His gaze lifts to mine carefully.
“I imagine you had to do your research on me,” I say. “Can I see it?”
For a moment, he only watches me. Measuring. Then he reaches into his pocket, unlocks his phone, and scrolls through it before handing it over.
“You’re taking this better than I expected.”
“I haven’t decided how I feel yet,” I reply, smiling.
That pulls the faintest breath of amusement from him.
I take the phone and begin scrolling. The file is thorough. Painfully thorough. Addresses. Schools. Employment history. Public records. Dates attached to moments of my life I’ve forgotten. My entire existence reduced to neat sections and clinical observations.
I keep scrolling silently. Alex doesn’t interrupt me. Doesn’t try to justify it.
When I hand the phone back, I say, “It’s a very robust file.”
One corner of his mouth lifts slightly.
“But it’s incomplete,” I add softly.
Something in his expression shifts.
I lean back into the chair, my eyes drifting somewhere past him. “Paper record’s incidents. Timelines. Hospital visits. Police reports.” My fingers lace together loosely in my lap. “But you won’t find reports for everything I went through in my life.”
The room grows still around us.
“My mom had been married before,” I say. “She had a son. Peter. My half-brother. He’s five years older than me.” My voice stays steady, even as my chest tightens. “Every other summer Peter stayed with his father in Washington. The other summers he was with us.”
I pause. “They were the worst summers of my life.”
“Peter was cruel. Violent.” I hesitate, then push through. “He actually tried to kill me as a child. Twice.”
Alex goes very still.
What stayed with me wasn’t what he did—it was how quickly my body adapted. How something inside me shut down the part that screamed this isn’t normal and replaced it with stay still, stay quiet, survive this moment.
That’s the thing about repeated danger—it stops feeling shocking. It becomes procedural.
“Once, he tried to open the car door on the highway—to push me out. Another time, he shoved me into the middle of a busy intersection.”
The room feels heavy now. Cold.
This is where everything gets much worse.