Page 62 of The Marriage Debt

31

LILA

They say I’m not under arrest, that I’m being held "for my protection", but the words feel hollow—just something to say to keep me still. The station smells like bleach and cheap coffee, and the walls close in, sterile and too quiet, pressing against my skin like they’re trying to trap my thoughts. The lights overhead buzz with that sickly blue-white glare that drains all the color from the world, and I sit in it, shaking.

My heart hasn’t stopped pounding since they pulled me from the wreckage. My hands are still streaked with dried blood—some of it mine, most of it not—and my skin itches with sweat. Every time I try to move my arms, they tremble, so I let them hang uselessly at my sides. I don’t feel safe. I don’t feel protected. I feel helpless. I feel alone. And I don’t know how I’m supposed to breathe in a world where Lev is missing.

No one will tell me where he is.

They say the situation is “active”. I know what that means. They can't help me find him. He was taken before they even got there. Every time a door opens in the hallway, I brace. Every time a phone rings, I flinch. I sit on the edge of a plastic chair in a corner room with no door, no privacy, no barrier between me and the officers walking past—like they think if they wall me in, I’ll fall apart.

I want to scream, but all I can do is listen.

The officers speak in code when they pass. Their expressions are tight, alert, unreadable. One glances my way and then looks quickly back to his clipboard. Another offers me a glass of water I don’t touch. I’m invisible to them unless I make noise, and I’m too tired to make noise.

When one of them turns his back to grab something from the counter, I reach for the phone on his desk. My voice is hoarse when I ask, “Can I call my lawyer?” He nods without looking up.

I stare at the keypad for a long second, barely seeing the numbers. I know I shouldn’t call him. Not after how I left. Not after what I found in that drawer and the way I threw it at his chest like it was all that ever mattered. I ran. I said I didn’t trust him. And maybe I didn’t—but now I do, or at least, I have no one else.

The silence presses down on me as I dial, wondering if I deserve to make this call. The line clicks. He answers on the first ring. I don’t even say his name. I just breathe, shallow and uneven, my throat closing with everything I can’t bring myself to say. For a moment, I think he might hang up. I think maybe he’ll say something soft, something gentle, and I’ll break all over again. But his voice is low and solid when it comes through the line.

“I’m already on the road.” He doesn’t ask where I am. He doesn’t say he’s coming. He just says that. And hangs up.

I set the phone down slowly, my fingers still curled like I’m afraid they’ll never open again. The silence that follows is thick and endless. I don’t know how long I sit there, but my eyes sting with unshed tears, and my chest feels like it’s caving in.

I keep thinking about how I got here. How I left my mother’s house in a flurry of spite and shame, thinking I could build a better life away from everything she touched. I married Anton to escape her, to be anything but her shadow. I hated the things he did, the life he dragged me into, but I let it happen. I stayed. And when it all burned down, I ended up back in the orbit of another man in the same world I swore I’d never live in again.

Mateo wasn’t supposed to be part of my story. But the universe shoved us together like we were a punishment for each other, and now Lev is the one who suffers for all of it. I see his little face every time I blink. His hands. The way he curls up against my side at night. I would do anything to take it back. Anything to have him safe in my arms again.

My throat tightens until I’m choking on the tears that finally come. I press a hand to my mouth to muffle the sound, but there’s no one here to comfort me. No one who can.

Fifteen minutes later, the back door of the station cracks open with a sharp metallic groan, and I rise from the plastic chair without flinching. My legs are stiff, my palms slick with sweat, but I move like I’ve been waiting for this moment—because I have.

Rafe stands in the shadows of the hallway, dressed in black like always, his jaw set hard, his eyes sharp as they scan every face in the room. He looks lethal, calm in a way that makes the officers instinctively step aside without knowing why. He doesn’t speak. He just gives me a small nod, the kind that says everything without saying a word. I don’t ask questions.

I follow him through the exit, my breath catching slightly as the heavy door shuts behind us with a final-sounding click. No one stops us or even looks up at us, for that matter.

The sky outside is still gray and leaking rain, the air damp and heavy like it’s holding its own grief. Rafe opens the door to the black Rossi vehicle and gives me a solemn nod. I slide inside onto the cold seat. My hands curl in my lap. I don’t ask where we’re going. I don’t care. Anything is better than sitting in that police station waiting to hear that my son is dead.

32

MATEO

We find the place under darkness and silence. The vineyard estate is nothing but rot and wire—overgrown vines strangling the last of the fences, stone walls faded to bone, with no cameras watching and no movement in sight. Just the echo of rain on the clay roof tiles and the slow creak of the wind through dying branches. Rafe, Alessio, and five men follow behind me, heads low, weapons ready.

We clear the main house first, moving room by room with our breath held and our steps measured, the only sound the soft click of safety releases and the faint rustle of boots against old floorboards. The kitchen is still stocked, plates crusted over on the counter like someone thought they’d come back. Upstairs, nothing. A bed unmade. A window broken. A rusted rifle under the mattress.

But then there’s the door on the north side of the cellar, steel-bolted and new, a jarring contrast to a house that hasn’t been touched in years. As I approach, I catch the low hum of a radio—its tinny broadcast echoes faintly down the hallway, the excited voice of a soccer announcer cutting through the silence like a bad joke no one asked for.

I peek around the corner. The man guarding it sits on a stool just beyond the threshold, lit by a bare bulb. He’s chewing on a sandwich, one hand draped over the gun on his lap like it’s just another shift. His posture is relaxed, completely unaware of me, the sandwich halfway to his mouth. He never even turns. He has no idea I’m there, no clue what kind of violence is standing ten feet away. He doesn’t know who I am or what I’ve done to get here.

I stay silent as I step into the frame, my breath measured, my aim steady. The man never sees me coming. I raise my gun and fire once into his chest, then again into his face. The sound cracks through the cellar like twigs snapping, and his body jerks before collapsing to the floor in a graceless heap, limbs folding under him. The sandwich slips from his hand and lands on the concrete beside the pool of spreading red, absurd in its mundanity.

The door is next. I kick the latch once. It doesn’t budge. I hit it again, harder, my shoulder crashing into the edge with everything I have. Something cracks. A hinge screams. Then it opens.

The air inside carries the stench of mold and damp stone, with a chill that settles into every breath and tightens the muscles beneath my skin. I step down slowly. The light is dim, coming from a barred vent high on the wall. The room is no bigger than a walk-in closet, concrete on every side.

Lev is there curled against the back wall, small and shivering, arms around his knees. His eyes are wide but dull, like he’s floated so far out he doesn’t even recognize me. For a second, I stop breathing.

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