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“I’ve heard enough. Dakota came here on her own. She’s trained here for months without a single problem. I can’t figure out what happened in Florida and I’m not going to pretend I can. Frankly, it’s not my business or concern. But I know what I’m looking at right now. A young woman who’s afraid of you. And a man whose concern smells a lot more like ownership than love.”

Gerald's mask slides further. “You’re making a mistake. She’s manipulative—she’ll say anything to dodge responsibility. Are you forgetting what she did to me this summer? Broke my nose. Tore my shoulder out of the socket. There’s a hospital record with my name on it, and I haven’t filed the police report out of respect for her mother’s memory." He straightens his cuffs, reasonable, rehearsed. “She hasn't been stable since Rebecca died. Delusions. Violence. Vanishing overnight. My lawyer tells me there are options for family when someone is a danger to herself. I’d rather it not come to that. But I’m not going to walk away and pretend she doesn’t exist.”

Victor stands. He fills a room when he wants to. “File it, then.” Victor’s voice stays level, which is worse than shouting. “Press those charges and hand her a courtroom. Let her explain, under oath, why a woman half your size broke your nose in the house she grew up in—and let a lawyer pull on every loose thread in that story of yours. You didn’t sit on that report out of respect. You sat on it because you can’t afford anyone asking her questions. Same goes for whatever you think a judge will sign for you. She has a gym full of people who see her every day. You have a performance.” He jerks his chin at the door. “This conversation is over. She’s part of this gym. She doesn’twant contact with you. That’s enough for me. Now get out of my building.”

Gerald rises. He looks at me on his way past, and the mask is gone entirely. Fifteen years of nightmares stare out of that respectable face.

“This isn’t over, Dakota. Run as far as you want. Hide behind whoever you want. You’re still mine. You’ll always be mine. Your mother understood that in the end. You will too.”

He walks out.

I’ve been holding my breath for minutes. When it finally leaves me, it comes out half gasp, half sob.

“Dakota.” Victor is beside me, hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

I can’t answer. Eli has pushed off the wall and his expression is murderous. Through the office glass I see Cruz and Dante and Brady clustered in the hall, all three tracking Gerald’s exit with expressions that promise a burial if he ever comes back.

Victor sees them too. How Eli is looking at me. I watch the question form behind his eyes, watch dots start drifting toward each other.

I can’t care right now. Gerald knows where I train. Probably knows my address, given the investigator. He never gives up. He said it himself, in front of witnesses, with the mask off.

You’re still mine.

Eli’s hand settles at the small of my back, steering me out. The others close around us the second we clear the door, but their bodies make a moving wall. Cruz’s jaw works like he’s chewing glass. Dante’s gaze keeps snapping to the front entrance. Brady looks ready to cry or swing, maybe both.

We make it to the back hallway, out of sight of the floor, and then I’m in Cruz’s arms with no memory of crossing the space between us. The shaking starts. All the adrenaline that carriedme through that office drains out at once and leaves nothing behind but the fourteen-year-old listening for footsteps.

“I’ve got you,” Cruz says into my hair. “I’ve got you, sweetheart.”

Brady’s hand spreads warm across my back. Dante’s fingers circle my wrist, thumb tracing slow shapes over the pulse point. Eli stands at the mouth of the hallway like a sentry.

He found me. Not because he loves me. Because I got away when I wasn’t supposed to, and Gerald doesn’t tolerate things that get away.

I think about Bellucci’s. The streetlight. Houses and dogs and forever. How safe I felt. How stupid.

And then, under the fear, under the shame crawling up my throat, a different heat starts to build. The one I learned to use in the cage. The one that turns terror into fuel.

He wants the timid girl in the bedroom, waiting for him. That girl is dead. I killed her one punch at a time over twelve years, and standing in her place is a professional fighter surrounded by four people who would go to war for her. If Gerald thinks he can walk into my gym and take that from me, he’s about to get an education.

“Dakota.” Eli’s voice cuts through the spiralling thoughts. “We need to talk. All of us. Not here. Somewhere private. He changed things today, and we need to be smart about what comes next.”

I nod against Cruz’s chest. Brady squeezes my shoulder. Dante’s thumb keeps moving on my wrist.

Over Cruz’s shoulder, at the far end of the hallway, Victor stands watching all of us. His arms hang loose at his sides and his face gives away nothing.

He saw. The way four men moved when I was threatened. The way they’re touching me now. Every careful wall we built, and he saw through the gaps in a single afternoon.

I don’t know what he’ll do with it.

Right now I can’t make room for that fear. Right now there’s only one truth with any weight—Gerald is out there. Watching. Planning.

And when he makes his move, we’ll be ready.

38

ELI

The text lands at 6:47 AM.