Page 79 of Ruin
"Enough is what I've got."
She reaches across the table and takes my hand.
Her fingers are small and warm and she squeezes once, the same way she squeezed my hand at my parents' funeral.
No words. Just presence.
Just Emilia, showing up and holding on and refusing to let go, even when I make it hard.
"Whatever's going on," she says, "you know I'm here, right? You know you can tell me anything."
The words sit on my tongue: He killed my parents. The man I've been with, the man I told you was a boyfriend, a consultant, nothing serious, he put a bullet in Dad's head and a knife in Mom's chest and then he had the audacity to make me fall in love with him.
He orchestrated my entire life.
Every school, every job, every apartment.
He watched me grieve the people he murdered and he waited until I was broken enough to rebuild into something useful.
And I still can't take off his collar.
"I know," I say instead. "I know."
She studies me for another beat, those blue eyes sharper than people give her credit for.
Then she lets it go, picks up her mimosa, and shifts gears.
She’s been my friend for years and learned that I'll talk when I'm ready, and pushing only makes me retreat further.
"Okay, speaking of weird and stressful." She takes a long sip. "Dad has beensostrange lately. Like, jumping-at-the-phone strange. Locking his study door, which he never does."
My fingers tighten around my glass. "Strange how?"
"I don't know. He won't really talk about it. But last week these men came to the courthouse. He didn't tell me himself. I overheard him on the phone with another judge about it." She lowers her voice, leans in like she's sharing gossip instead of something that's making the blood drain from my face. "They were Russian. Asking about old cases. Like,reallyold cases. AndDad was rattled, Sel. You know my dad.Nothingrattles him. He once had a defendant threaten to kill the family in open court, and he just told the bailiff to note it for the record."
Russians.
At the courthouse.
Asking about old cases.
The restaurant noise fades to static.
I can feel my heartbeat in my ears, slow and heavy, and the mimosa in my stomach turns to acid.
"Did he say which cases?" My voice comes out level. Practiced.
A year of training, and the composure holds even when the ground is opening beneath me.
"No. He just kept saying 'it's nothing' and 'don't worry about it,' which, as you know, is Dad code for 'I'm extremely worried about it.'" Emilia frowns. "Why? Does it mean something to you?"
"No. Just... with everything going on with organized crime in the city, Russians poking around courthouses isn't great."
"Right? That's what I said. I told him he should report it, but he got all weird and changed the subject." She shakes her head. "I swear, judges are the worst patients. They'd rather preside over their own murder trial than admit someone scared them."
She laughs, and I force one out to match.
But under the table, my free hand is gripping my thigh hard enough to leave marks, and my mind is already running calculations I can't stop.
