23. Liana
— ? —
Liana
The rain started just after Bianca fell asleep.
I was in the kitchen cleaning up the dishes from dinner when the lights flickered.
Once, twice, and then they went out completely.
The darkness was absolute. No streetlights visible through the windows, no glow from neighboring houses, just the endless black pressing in from all sides.
I stood frozen at the sink with my hands still in the soapy water, waiting for my eyes to adjust, waiting for the power to kick back on.
It didn’t.
My phone was on the counter and I fumbled for it, nearly knocking it onto the floor before my fingers closed around the familiar shape.
Bianca. I needed to check on Bianca.
I took the stairs slowly, one hand on the railing, the flashlight beam bouncing ahead of me. Her door was slightly ajar and I pushed it open, holding my breath, half expecting to find her awake and frightened by the storm.
She was still asleep. Curled on her side with Gerald the elephant tucked under her chin, her breathing slow and even, completely oblivious to the chaos outside. The crown was on her nightstand where she always left it, glinting in the flashlight beam.
I pulled her door mostly closed and went back downstairs.
The breaker box was in the hallway closet, behind a stack of boxes I hadn’t unpacked yet.
I shoved them aside and opened the metal panel, shining my flashlight over the rows of switches.
Nothing looked tripped. I flipped a few off and on anyway, the way my father had taught me years ago, but the darkness held.
The emergency maintenance number was somewhere in the lease paperwork. I had filed it in the kitchen drawer with all the other documents from the rental company.
I dug through the drawer until I found the lease, my flashlight clenched between my teeth, and squinted at the small print until I located the number.
It rang four times before going to voicemail.
“This is Liana Costa at the Maple Street property.” I kept my voice calm, professional. “The power went out about fifteen minutes ago and I can’t get it back on. I have a young child in the house and I need someone to come look at it as soon as possible. Please call me back.”
I left my number and hung up and sat down at the kitchen table to wait.
The rain was louder now, a constant roar against the roof.
Twenty minutes passed. The maintenance line didn’t call back.
I was about to try again when the knock came at the door.
Relief flooded through me as I crossed the living room, flashlight in hand. Finally. Someone who could figure out what was wrong with the electrical system and get the power back on before Bianca woke up to a dark house and panicked.
I opened the door.
Dominic was standing on my porch.
Soaked through, his shirt plastered to his chest, water streaming down his face and dripping from his jaw. A flashlight in his hand, identical to mine. His eyes finding me in the darkness with an expression I couldn’t read.
My hand tightened on the doorframe.
“What are you doing here?” The words came out harder than I meant them to.
“The power.” He gestured vaguely toward the house. “You called about the power.”
“I called the maintenance number on the lease.” I didn’t step back to let him in. “I didn’t call you.”
“I know.”
Something in his face shifted. The careful blankness cracking just slightly, revealing something underneath that made my stomach drop.
“The maintenance number routes to a service that contacts the property owner.” His voice was flat. “For emergencies.”
“And you’re telling me the property owner showed up personally in the middle of a storm to fix my breaker box.”
He didn’t answer. Just stood there in the rain, water running down his face, his eyes not quite meeting mine.
The pieces clicked into place with a horrible, nauseating certainty.
“You.” I heard my own voice go cold and distant. “You own it.”
He was silent.
“The company that owns the company.” I backed away from the door, my flashlight beam swinging wildly across the walls. “Shoreline Properties. Atlantic Holdings. Whatever other shell companies you buried it under. It was you the whole time.”
“Liana.”
“Every door in this town that closed on me was you.” My voice rose but I kept it controlled, aware of Bianca sleeping upstairs. “Every landlord who suddenly changed their mind. Every lease that fell through at the last minute. Every convenient excuse and mysterious complication. That was all you.”
“Yes.”
One word. No excuse. No explanation. No attempt to soften it or spin it or make it sound like anything other than what it was.
Somehow that made it worse.
“Spencer told me his rentals were all booked up.” I was pacing now, unable to stand still. “Did you call in favors from everyone I might have turned to?”
“I asked him not to help you find a place.” Dominic’s voice was quiet. “I told him it was for your own safety. He believed me.”
“Because you’re Dominic Costa and people believe what you tell them to believe.”
“Yes.”
I stopped pacing and turned to face him.
“So this is how you show me I’m still just a thing you keep.” The words scraped out of me raw and bleeding. “I asked you to let me go. I begged you to let me go. And you couldn’t do it, could you? You couldn’t sign the papers, so you built me a cage instead.”
“That’s not what I-”
“Let me decorate it.” I cut him off. “Let me believe I had found something on my own when you had already bought and paid for it.”
“I was trying to keep you safe.”
“You were trying to keep me contained.”
“You’re the only thing in my whole life I ever chose. Not the business, not the harbor, not any of it. All of that was handed to me or taken from someone else. But you? You I chose. Every day, every hour, every breath since that first moment, I have chosen you.”
“You have a strange way of showing it.”
“I know.” He nodded slowly. “I know I do. Because I never learned how to love something without also trying to own it. Without caging it and controlling it and making sure it could never leave. I spent ten years being too much of a coward to act like I chose you. I treated you like a possession instead of a partner. And when you finally tried to leave, I did what I always do. I grabbed tighter.”
“I’m sorry.” He said it quietly, simply. “I’m so sorry, Liana. For the house. For the manipulation. For every door I closed to keep you trapped here. For the words I said in my office that I can never take back.”
He took a step forward, giving me every second to stop him.
I didn’t stop him.
His hand came up to my jaw, his palm warm despite the cold rain, his fingers curving gently around the side of my face. The touch was achingly familiar, ten years of history contained in that single point of contact.
I let him.
His thumb brushed across my cheekbone, wiping away rain or tears, I couldn’t tell which anymore.
“No.” I whispered it and stepped back, breaking the contact.
His hand hung in the air for a moment before falling to his side.
“You have to prove it.” I cut him off. “Do you understand that? Words are not enough anymore. Apologies are not enough. Grand gestures and romantic speeches and looking at me with those eyes and touching my face in the rain, none of it is enough.”
“Then tell me what is?”
“I don’t know.” The admission came out exhausted. “I don’t know what would be enough. All I know is that you’ve never proved a thing to me in your life. You’ve only ever taken.”
He was quiet for a long moment, the rain hammering down on him, his eyes never leaving my face.
“You’re right.” He said it without defense. “I don’t know how to prove things. I only know how to take them. But I’m willing to learn, if you’ll let me.”
“I don’t know if I can let you.” My hand was on the door now, ready to close it. “I don’t know if there’s anything left in me that believes you’re capable of changing.”
“Then I’ll prove that too.” His voice was steady despite the shivering. “However long it takes. Whatever it costs. I’ll prove that I can be different.”
“Starting how?”
“Starting now.” He stepped back from the porch, back into the full force of the rain. “Starting by leaving when you ask me to, instead of pushing my way in the way I always have. Starting by respecting your choice even when it kills me to do it.”
I stared at him. This man I had loved for a decade, standing in the pouring rain, offering me the one thing he had never offered before.
Control.
Real control. Over my own life, my own choices, my own future. The power to send him away and have him actually go.
“The power will be back on within the hour.” His voice was matter-of-fact now, all business. “I’ll have someone come check the lines in the morning. If you need anything before then, call the regular maintenance number. Someone will answer.”
“Someone who isn’t you?”
“Someone who isn’t me.” He nodded. “I’ll transfer the property to your name by the end of the week. No strings, no complications. It’s yours, free and clear. You can sell it if you want. Move somewhere else. Do whatever you need to do.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”