expected life to snap back into place.
It did not.
Her apartment felt too quiet. The walk from the subway felt too exposed. Every dark van made her pulse jump. Every unknown number made her think of Chloe’s missed calls.
Dominic sent protection.
Harper sent it away.
Dominic sent it again, farther back this time.
Harper pretended not to notice.
One month after the kidnapping, she returned to the library for the first time.
She stood outside for ten full minutes before she could make herself go in. When she finally left with two books under her arm, Dominic was waiting across the street.
No van.
No men visible.
No command in his posture.
Just a man in a black coat holding two coffees and looking strangely uncertain.
Harper crossed the street slowly.
“Are you following me, Moretti?”
“Yes.”
“At least lie a little.”
“I am trying to stop lying to you.”
That caught her off guard.
He held out one coffee.
She took it, mostly because her hands wanted something to do.
“I owe you more apologies than one man can fit into a single conversation,” he said.
“That is accurate.”
“I also owe you dinner.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “That is a bold conclusion.”
“It is a request. Not an order.”
The distinction mattered.
More than she wanted it to.
Harper looked at him. Really looked. She saw the danger, because it would always be there. She saw the violence around him, the shadows attached to his name, the life that would never be simple.
But she also saw the man who had shielded her sister with his body. The man who had looked shattered beside her hospital bed. The man who remembered library books and bad coffee and the exact distance she needed between fear and trust.
“One dinner,” she said.
Dominic’s smile was small, but it changed his whole face.
“One dinner,” he agreed.
Harper should have walked away then. A sensible woman would have.
But Harper had stopped being the woman who believed danger only happened to other people.
She knew better now.
Danger could appear in a black van.
It could wear an expensive suit.
It could also hold out coffee with trembling hands and look at you like the whole city had gone quiet.
So Harper took a sip, tucked her book beneath her arm, and walked beside Dominic Moretti into the bright, uncertain morning.
