"This isn't about performance. The commute isn't safe. I've found you a better opportunity closer to campus."
Professional. Impersonal. Final.
I ran through it again, adjusting emphasis, stripping emotion from each syllable.
"Management agrees it's in everyone's best interest."
A lie. Management didn't know I was here. Wouldn't know until I made it true tomorrow.
My fingers tapped the steering wheel—once, twice—before I forced them still.
This was the right call. Had to be. Distance solved problems. Created boundaries. Removed temptation before it became something neither of us could walk back from.
She can't work here anymore. I won't allow it.
The thought settled with cold finality, even as something deeper twisted against it.
I hated that I was rehearsing this conversation like a teenager working up courage to ask someone to prom. Hated the way my pulse kicked up at the thought of seeing her face when I said the words. Hated how badly I wanted to protect her from a danger she didn't even know existed. Hated that the biggest threat to her safety was probably me.
She'd argue. Of course she would. Pride wouldn't let her accept help without a fight, especially not from someone who made her nervous. She'd insist she was fine, that she could handle it, that she didn't need anyone's charity. All the things I would've said at her age. All the things that would've been just as untrue.
I cut the engine and stepped out into the cooling evening air.
The neighborhood looked worse up close. Graffiti sprawled across brick facades in angry slashes of color. Broken glass glittered in gutters under flickering streetlights. A dog barked somewhere—sharp, aggressive, chained too close to the street. The building itself sagged like something exhausted, paint peeling in long strips, security door propped open with a cinder block. No cameras. No lighting over the entrance. No intercom system. Just rust and neglect and the kind of vulnerability that made my skin crawl.
A man leaned against the corner bodega, watching me with the flat, assessing stare of someone deciding whether I was worth the trouble. I held his gaze until he looked away first.
My jaw ached from clenching.
She walks through this. Every night. Alone.
The fury came back—not hot this time, but ice-cold and surgical. The kind that made decisions without consulting emotion.
I crossed the cracked sidewalk and pulled open the security door that wasn't securing anything. The hallway inside reeked of mildew and old cigarettes. Stairs creaked under my weight as I climbed to the third floor.
Apartment 3B sat at the end of a dim corridor.
I stopped in front of her door, hand raised to knock. And hesitated.
This would hurt her. I knew that. She'd just gotten stable, just started building something on her own terms. And I was about to take it away.
For her own good, I told myself. For both our sakes.
I knocked twice. Firm. Deliberate. Waited for the sound of footsteps that would change everything.
Chapter 15
Olivia
The apartment was too quiet.I'd tried filling the silence with dishes clanking in the sink, water running too long, cabinets opening and closing without purpose. But the moment I turned everything off, the stillness crept back in. Pressed against my ears until I heard my own heartbeat.
I sat cross-legged on the couch—secondhand, scratchy fabric that smelled faintly of whoever owned it before me—and stared at my phone. No messages. No missed calls. Nothing.
That's good, I told myself. Nothing means safe.
The knock shattered the silence like glass breaking. Two sharp raps—firm, deliberate—and my entire body locked.
My phone slipped from my hands. Hit the couch cushion without sound.
