Page 158 of Jude

So I did the work. I tore through the old damage until I could sleep through the night without my blood running cold.

The final move required a different kind of steel.

I called my legal team into the downtown office on a Thursday afternoon.

We sat around a glass conference table while my lead attorney, Brian, slid a heavy stack of white documents toward me.

‘Jude,’ he murmured, tapping his gold pen, his eyes on me with concern. ‘You sure about this?’

‘Never been more certain,’ I growled.

Stripping away every legal tie, prenup, and obligation that bound her to a marriage she never asked for tore right through my chest.

However, I wasn’t going to cage her.

I scrawled my signature at the bottom.

If she ever came back to my bed, it was going to be because she chose to stay, not because a piece of paper forced her hand.

SOFIA

Nashville’s snap cold and storms eased into a series of sunny days that seemed like a tentative promise of easing temperatures.

One evening, before my shift, I took a walk around the block under a breathtaking, bruised lavender sky.

A flock of starlings performed a synchronized, rolling arc above the telephone wires, their tiny wings catching the final rays of daylight.

I paused on the gravel shoulder, monitoring a winged shadow gliding high over the brick warehouses.

A wild thought struck me: an Aquila del Bonelli eagle? Impossible.

Still, I smiled at the sight, eyes on its flight until the bird disappeared, before heading inside toward the shelter’s kitchen.

I was on rubbish duty that night, so I hauled the plastic liners from the inner bins and carried them out the back door.

I trudged in the direction of the side street dumpsters and threw the bags inside the metal bin.

Just as I stepped back, a contour shifted out from the shadow of the fence line.

I almost tripped, and my sneakers skidded in the dirt as my pulse spiked.

The silhouette stepped into the amber glow of the streetlamp, one hand held up to indicate no harm.

‘You scared me,’ I choked out.

‘Sorry, babe, didn’t mean to.’

Jude’s signature hoarse timbre reverberated in the quiet alley with gravitas.

I raked his face, sensing the desperate, shattered emotions from his previous visit were long gone.

He was back to his old self, I thought, as my heart did a treacherous flip.

My pulse hammered as my eyes mapped his features.

His broad shoulders filled out a black army jacket over a charcoal thermal shirt that outlined the ripples of his torso.

Ebony denim trousers disappeared into rugged leather combat boots.