Chapter 5 - A Life of Her Own
In the morning, Naomi woke to the unfamiliar brightness of a room with good windows.
Her throat ached. The marks were darker, but the terror around them had become less immediate. On the bedside table stood water, the clinic’s instructions, and her phone connected to a charger she had not brought.
Damian’s chair was empty.
She sat for several moments before going to the bathroom.
The woman in the mirror looked tired and unmistakably herself. That surprised her. She had expected to look altered beyond recognition, as though the previous evening should have left something larger than bruises.
She dressed in the spare clothes the housekeeper had found.
A wool turtleneck lay folded on the chair.
Naomi touched the collar, then chose a soft crewneck sweater instead.
Downstairs, Damian sat at the kitchen island beside untouched espresso. He looked up when she entered and noticed the sweater. His gaze paused at her neck, then moved deliberately to her face.
“How did you sleep?”
“Eventually.”
He nodded toward the chair beside him.
She sat.
“Leo can drive you to the shop,” he said. “He’ll stay nearby.”
“Can?”
Damian looked at her.
“Is he available, or is this an order?”
A pause.
“I want him with you.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
His hand closed around the espresso cup.
Naomi watched the familiar businessman return, arranging facts so they left as little room for objection as possible. Yesterday, she would have accepted it because being agreeable had seemed part of her side of the bargain.
Today, she was tired of bargains she could not question.
“Caleb knows where I work,” she said. “I understand why you’re worried.”
“Then—”
“But if someone follows me, he follows the plan I agree to.”
Damian leaned back.
“What plan?”
“Leo drives me. He waits outside unless I ask him in. He doesn’t speak to customers about me. He doesn’t report every conversation I have.”
“And if someone comes looking for you?”
“He tells me. If there’s an immediate threat, he acts.”
Damian considered her.
She lifted the water glass someone had placed in front of her.
“Protection should still leave me a life.”
He looked toward the kitchen doorway, then back.
“All right.”
She did not thank him for agreeing to something that should have been hers already.
Instead, she asked, “What did Caleb say about me?”
Damian’s expression hardened.
“Nothing worth repeating.”
“That means something ugly.”
“Yes.”
She looked down at the glass.
“He used to say I owed him because he stayed when my father got sick.”
Damian said nothing.
“At the time, I thought staying was kindness. Then I realized he was keeping a bill.”
The espresso machine clicked behind them.
“I don’t want another bill,” she said.
Damian looked at her.
“Then we need to discuss our agreement.”
“Yes,” she replied. “We do.”
At the shop, Ruth opened the door before Leo could get out of the car.
She took one look at Naomi and stopped with her hand still on the handle. Her eyes flicked toward the marks, then away before the glance became an inspection.
“Tea,” she said.
“I can work.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t drink tea while doing it.”
Inside, the familiar smell of old wood and beeswax nearly brought Naomi to tears. An unfinished chair stood upside down on a bench. Somebody had left a radio playing softly near the stockroom.
The credenza waited beneath its dust sheet.
Nothing here needed her to become someone else.
Ruth placed a mug beside her and looked out through the window at Leo.
“He staying?”
“Outside.”
“Does he know the loading area isn’t a parking space?”
“I’ll tell him.”
“Good.”
Naomi smiled into the tea.
She spent the first hour doing paperwork because holding a sanding block made her hands tremble. Every time the bell over the door rang, she looked up too quickly. Ruth noticed without commenting and began greeting customers from the front counter before they reached the work area.
At noon, the owner of the corner store brought over a sandwich.
He placed it beside Naomi’s mug with an expression she had never seen on him before: careful, overly polite, afraid of taking up space.
“On the house.”
She looked at the wrapper.
“Why?”
“Just thought you might be hungry.”
He glanced toward Leo outside.
Naomi understood.
She reached into her pocket and put money on the counter.
“Then thank you. But I’ll pay.”
He began to refuse.
She looked at him until he accepted it.
After he left, she sat very still.
The city had learned something overnight. She could feel it in the way people looked through the window, then looked away. Yesterday she had been a quiet woman who restored furniture. Today, she had become a story about Damian Russo.
She did not know which version frightened her more.
At one, she called the clinic’s support worker.
She asked about documenting what had happened, about unwanted contact, about what to do if Caleb contacted her again from another number. The woman answered patiently. Naomi wrote everything down in the same notebook where she kept measurements and supply lists.
May you like
When the call ended, she looked at the page.
It felt good to have steps that belonged to her.
