Chapter 17
MASSIMO
The Koenigsegg purrs instead of roars on the drive back.
Like, even the engine knows to keep its mouth shut.
Boston slides by in glass, gray, and brick.
Normally, I’d be weaving through traffic with Em in the other car, both of us showing off.
Today I stay in the right lane, hands at ten and two like some nervous teenager on a driving test.
Sofia’s in the passenger seat. Paco’s a little blonde loaf in her lap, where Em and I both want to be. Her bag and his bed are crammed in the tiny space behind our seats, where they were just twenty-four hours before. Hypercar life. Looks cool. Useless for actual living.
The silence eats at me. I should say something.
Ask how she’s feeling. If she’s sore from everything.
If she regrets it. If she’s mad. I don’t.
Not because I don’t want to, but because I’m afraid to know the answers.
Afraid her truth isn’t mine. And I’m trying really fucking hard to give her what she asked for.
Space.
Feels like slow suffocation.
Red light.
The car idles low, a deep hum under my palms. I glance over.
Her head is tipped back against the seat.
Wet curls hang down around her face, which is turned toward the window.
No makeup now. Just the faint shadows under her eyes and the tiny frown line between her brows that’s been there since she said she’s going home.
Her fingers move absently over Paco’s head. Long strokes. He sighs like he’s in heaven.
Lucky little bastard.
“Are you warm enough?” It comes out of my mouth before I can stop it.
She blinks. Turns just enough that I catch the side of her profile.
“I’m fine, Papito.”
The words are polite. Neutral. Might as well be a stranger in my car. The light turns green. I ease the clutch, roll us forward. I shouldn’t notice that she’s just said papito without the usual heat. Without teasing. Without the little smile she usually tacks on. But I do.
We’re quiet for another few blocks. The city changes. The pretty tree-lined streets give way to tighter, older roads. Graffiti. Trash. Triple-deckers with peeling paint and satellite dishes stuck at odd angles. The neighborhood I already decided I hate.
My phone dings in the cupholder. I don’t look. My eyes stay on the road. Her gaze flicks down.
“Your phone,” she murmurs.
“It can wait.”
“It might be about my door.”
She’s right. Of course, she’s right. I grit my teeth, tap the screen at the next long light. It’s a text from my handyman.
Locks changed. Reinforced strike plate and deadbolt. 3 inch screws. I exhale through my nose. Something unclenches a fraction.
Keys in white envelope taped inside the fire extinguisher cabinet by her door. Tell her to keep them separate. Don’t lose.
“It’s done,” I manage to grit out. Glad it’s done. Unhappy that she’s already going back. My fantasies for this weekend are up in flames. “Locksmith reinforced everything.”
She closes her eyes for a sec like she’s collecting herself.
“Gracias.” It’s strained, common courtesy, and not heartfelt. “Did he say anything else? About the frame? The door?”
I hear the worry in her questions. I heard it last night when we discovered what her ex did, the break-in, the way he moved through her space like it still belonged to him. My hands curl tighter on the wheel.
“Frame’s solid,” I tell her, keeping it to straight facts. “He replaced the strike and added three-inch screws into the studs. He’d have to really want to get in now.”
She flinches at that, just a little. My mouth snaps shut. Wrong words. I want to kick myself.
“I mean, he’d make a lot of noise. Cops would be called before he ever made it through.”
“It’s fine,” she says quickly. “It’s okay.”
But it’s not.
Not to me.
We turn onto her street. The Koenigsegg looks stupid here.
Too low, too sleek, too rich between the cracked asphalt and dented sedans.
People stare as we pass. A couple of guys on a stoop, a woman dragging a laundry basket, some kid with a basketball under his arm.
I slow down even more. Scan the row of buildings.
Everything looks normal. No sign of him, at least.
“Fourth building down, on the left,” she says, pointing as if I hadn’t been here enough times to know exactly which one is hers. Been inside just yesterday, but I let her guide me anyway. Makes her feel like she’s directing something. Like, I’m not in control of every variable I can grab.
I pull up to the curb, kill the engine. Silence inside the cabin feels heavier than the engine noise.
“I’ll walk you up,” I say automatically.
“Massi—”
“I’m not staying,” I cut in, trying not to sound as raw as I feel. “Just carrying your stuff. Getting you the keys. That’s it.”
Her lips press together. She looks at the building. Back at me. Something in her face softens, but only a little.
“Okay, but just that. No more.”
It’s stupid, how relieved that small concession makes me.
I pop my door, climb out, then circle around to her side. She gets out before I make it there, Paco tucked against her chest. She looks small. Not in her curves. In the way she holds herself. More vulnerable and definitely defenseless.
I grab her bag from the back, his little bed, and the extra bag of random shit she brought over with her, expecting a longer stay. Feels wrong, walking her to the door instead of back to my room.
She’s on the first floor. I hate it. Too accessible and, in her case, too many entry points. I should have had the locksmith reinforce the patio doors. I didn’t think about it. Fuck me.
The entryway smells like old cooking and bleach. Her door sits halfway down. Fresh metal gleams dully where the deadbolt is. My blood spikes just looking at them.
“Fire extinguisher cabinet,” I mutter, shifting the bags to one arm.
The red metal box sits on the wall to the right of her door.
I tug it open. Yep. White envelope taped inside.
I peel it off and hold it out. She takes it like it’s something fragile.
Tears the top carefully, pulls out two shiny new keys on a cheap key ring.
Her throat moves when she swallows.
“I want to go in first. Just to check everything.”
She hesitates. I can see the war behind her eyes. Pride and fear. Independence and exhaustion with this whole situation.
“Five minutes, Sofia.”
“That’s fine.”
I take one key from her without brushing her fingers more than necessary. The lock turns smooth and new. I push the door open and step inside ahead of her. Same small living room. Same secondhand couch. Same tiny TV.
The new metal reinforcement plate along the jamb glints in the light from the window. The new chain lock dangles sharply against the old door. If I had more time, I’d have added a steel door instead. Then again, if I really had my way, she wouldn’t be here at all.
I do a quick sweep. Kitchen. Bathroom. Bedroom. Closet. Under the bed. Just in case he’s stupid enough to think he can hide and wait. He’s not here.
My shoulders drop a fraction. I didn’t realize how tight they were until they hurt.
“It’s clear,” I shout. “You’re good.”
She steps in slowly, like the floor might give way. Paco wriggles in her arms, already recognizing the place, yapping once as if to say he’s home. I hate it.
Her eyes move over everything. She notices the new strike plate. The sturdier screws. The way the door closes more snugly now when I test it.
“It feels. . . different.”
“Safer.”
Or as safe as you can make a place that has seen better days, like years ago.
“Hopefully.” She brushes her fingers over the edge of the door.
I don’t say what I want to say. That if I ever see her ex in this building, I’ll bury him. That I’ve already looked up his photo again, memorized it, just in case. That there are cameras at my place, guards, and locks that would keep her safer than this whole complex combined.
Space.
Give her space.
“I’ll, uh, put this down.”
I lift her bag slightly. She nods toward the bedroom.
“On the bed is fine. His things are in the corner by the window.”
Her voice is already going distant again. Professional and nurse mode. I hate that this is where we are back to. To quote my brother, it sucks.
I set the duffel on her bed, drop Paco’s little nest where she instructs. The room smells like her. Papaya lotion and clean laundry. It makes my body ache at the loss of her already.
Less than an hour ago, I was pushing into her on my counter. She was screaming in pleasure. Em immediately followed with his own way of fucking, and she taunted him for it. Made him come harder than I’ve seen in the last several women.
Now I’m setting her bag down like a polite Uber Black driver dropping off a passenger.
I head back to the front room. She’s standing in the middle of it. Paco’s sniffing his way around like he’s checking for intruders. She’s turning in a slow circle, looking at her things like she’s not sure she wants them anymore. Like maybe he tainted them all.
“Thank you,” she finally says, and I have no clue which part. For the best twenty-four hours of my life? “For . . . for calling your guy. For paying him. I’ll pay you back when I can.”
“You won’t,” I say automatically.
Her gaze sharpens. “Massi—”
“I’m not taking your money, Sofia. You already told me that you send money home to your family. I’m not snatching it away from them. It’s not right. Just let me take care of this. It’s nothing really, just a few hundred bucks is all.”
“Nothing to you,” she counters, planting those fists on her hips like the first day I noticed her. “But a lot to me.”
There it is. That wall. I see it go up, brick by brick, or pride, challenge, and too much damn independence. I scrub a hand over my jaw, try to pick my words more carefully than I have in years. Maybe ever.