What? How can he know anything? I forget how close they are. Matt might be quiet but he’s Parker’s champion.
I change my mind and speed walk toward the exit, but I hear my name.
“Annika.”
I stand frozen on the cold floor.
He called me Annika, not Anna. He’s been respecting my name change at least in public.
I turn bit by bit and Parker stands a few feet away, helmet in hand, chest rising and falling like he ran sprints for sixty minutes straight.
I’ve never seen him like this.
Not angry.
Not exactly.
Something worse—the kind of hurt born from betrayal.
Confusion tangles in his voice. “Tell me,” he says,fighting to keep his emotions in check. “I need to know everything. Now.”
My throat constricts.
“Parker…”
“Tell me I’m missing something,” he says, stepping closer, his voice breaking under the weight of it. “Because right now my brain can’t make any of this fit with the woman I know.”
The words slap against my cheeks.
His chest rises sharply, emotion flickering across his face so fast I almost miss it. Anger is there, yes—but underneath it is heartbreak. Confusion. The look of a man trying to reconcile the woman he loves with the story unraveling in front of him.
“I… I…”
Swinging his arm, the helmet leaves his hand and slams into the wall with a crack that echoes through the tunnel.
I flinch.
But a suffocating silence follows.
The anger flashes hot and immediate, but it fades just as quickly into something worse. Pain. The kind that hollows out his expression and makes him look at me like he’s already grieving us.
“You said it yourself I was a kid,” I manage, my voice thinner than I want it to be.
His head jerks back, eyes blazing. “No, Annika,” he says, shaking his head hard. “Being a kid explains why you were terrified. It doesn’t explain why you carried this alone.”
“I know.” I drop my chin into my chest, unable to look him in the eye.
He’s more upset than I’ve ever seen him. He’s beenarrogant before and he’s walked out my office, stomping, but I’ve never seen this type of frustration from him.
He says quietly, like he’s trying to understand it while saying it out loud. “And maybe part of me understands why you ran… but what I don’t understand is why you didn’t trust me with your pain.”
“Those girls were kids too,” he says, emotion finally spilling over. “Do you understand how hard this is for me to process?”
He’s right.
I walk toward him and reach for his hands, but he makes it clear that he doesn’t want me to touch him. But God, I want to. I want to make him understand.
“I was scared,” I say, the truth creeping up my throat.
