Chương 2 - THE MAN WHO NEVER RAISED HIS VOICE
Kian Moretti did not reach for a weapon. He didn't need to. The two men behind him shifted positions, blocking the corridor without touching anyone, and the voice outside fell silent. Meanwhile, his son was busy explaining the conditions of our imaginary marriage.
"She gets half my dinosaur collection," Zayn informed his father. "Except the T. rex. That's not negotiable."
"Reasonable," Kian said. His eyes never left me. "Are you hurt badly?"
I shook my head because it was easier than explaining the bruises, the split corner of my lip, and the night I'd slept sitting up in a bus station to keep Regina from finding me.
"That wasn't the question," he said.
"I'll live."
"I can see that." He lowered his voice. "Would you like to leave this room?"
Nobody had asked me what I wanted in months. Not the motel clerk demanding another deposit. Not the manager who fired me when Regina called his business eleven times. Certainly not Regina, who had tried to negotiate my future over a plate of spaghetti.
"Your son's in danger if they're still here," I said.
"He won't be for long."
Zayn tugged at his father's sleeve. "Aurora goes first. That's the rule when you rescue somebody."
"A rule I can follow." Kian stepped aside so I could see the restaurant's rear exit and the glow of the kitchen lights. "You can walk beside me, behind me, or leave through the kitchen with my head of security. Your choice."
My fingers tightened around the pan. "I'm not getting into a car with strangers."
"Good." He nodded once. "Don't start tonight."
For a moment, I couldn't decide whether he was making fun of me. Then he asked one of his men to call the restaurant manager back and keep the police line open. I set down the pan. Zayn pressed his bear into my hands as though it were an official escort pass.
The rear hallway smelled of garlic and bleach. Regina stood near the back door, clutching her handbag so tightly that the buckle had dug marks into her palm. Two men in dark coats waited beside her. The taller one had the tired, irritated expression of someone who had expected an easy job and was beginning to suspect overtime.
"Aurora," Regina snapped when she saw me. "Finally. Tell this man you're coming with us."
"I'm not."
"You don't understand what happens if I don't pay."
"I understand exactly what you offered them."
The taller collector looked toward Kian. Recognition rippled across his face. He took a step backward.
"Mr. Moretti," he said. "This isn't your concern."
"My son was hiding in a locked room because your little collection party frightened everyone in the building," Kian replied. "That makes it my concern. Who sent you?"
"Tony Marchetti."
Kian's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "And what were you told to collect?"
The man glanced at Regina. She rushed to answer. "My stepdaughter agreed to help me! She owes me after everything I've done for her."
"That's a lie," I said.
Kian looked at me rather than Regina. "Do you want to speak for yourself?"
"Yes." The word surprised me with its certainty. "She borrowed fifty thousand dollars. She told Tony I'd work for him instead of paying cash. I never agreed."
A door opened at the far end of the hallway. The restaurant manager appeared with two uniformed officers. One collector began to protest that this was a private financial dispute. The other stared at the exit, calculating whether running would be worse than staying.
The older officer asked if I wanted to make a report. I wanted to say no. Reports left addresses. Statements led to court. Regina had made it clear that any official complaint would give her another excuse to come after me. But Zayn stood beside his father, gripping the stuffed bear's paw as if we were all waiting for me to decide what sort of adult I wanted to be.
"Yes," I said. "I do."
Regina's face twisted. "After I raised you?"
"You moved into our house when I was sixteen," I replied. "And you sold my mother's jewelry before I'd finished high school. Let's not exaggerate your contribution."
One of the officers guided her away from me. She protested so loudly that diners in the restaurant turned their heads. Kian remained still, his hands visible, allowing the officers to do their work. That detail mattered more to me than his reputation. A powerful man could have made everyone disappear. Instead, he'd made room for me to be heard.
When the officers finished taking an initial statement, the manager offered me his office to call a friend. My best friend, Leah, was working a double nursing shift and lived in a studio apartment with three roommates. She answered on the fourth ring and swore so extravagantly that Zayn covered his bear's ears.
"I can send a ride," Leah said. "But you can't come back to your old place. Regina found it last week."
My exhaustion settled over me like wet cement.
Kian waited until I hung up. "My security team can arrange a hotel under your name, with no obligation to me. If you'd rather have the police coordinate a shelter, that's also an option."
"Why?" I asked. "You don't know me."
He glanced at Zayn, who had fallen asleep upright on a kitchen stool. "My son trusts people quickly. Sometimes I envy him. Sometimes he terrifies me. Tonight he appears to have found someone who stood in front of him with a frying pan."
"I didn't know whose son he was."
"That's why I believe you."
A waiter approached with a paper bag containing dinner from the kitchen. I hadn't ordered anything. Kian gave it to me without ceremony.
"The hotel is a choice," he repeated. "Not a debt."
I accepted because I had finally reached the point where refusing every kindness was becoming another way of letting Regina control me. Zayn woke as we reached the front of the restaurant. He insisted on saying goodbye properly.
"Do we get to see you tomorrow?" he asked.
"We'll see," I replied.
He frowned. "That's grown-up language for no."
"It's grown-up language for I need to think."
Kian crouched beside him. "And thinking is allowed. Remember?"
Zayn considered it, then offered me the bear. "Take Captain Buttons. He's brave when people aren't."
I kissed the bear's crooked ear and handed him back. "Captain Buttons should stay with you tonight."
I left with a hotel reservation, a police report number, and a business card bearing Kian's office telephone. For the first time in months, a locked door behind me meant safety.
May you like
At 2:14 a.m., someone slid an envelope beneath my hotel room door. Inside was a photograph of me leaving Bellarosa. A red circle had been drawn around my face. Beneath it, in handwriting I recognized from Regina's old birthday cards, were four words.
He can't watch forever.
