I blinked at him, my brain scrambling to keep up, and then—because something in his eyes told me this wasn’t a game—I nodded.
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “Just… work.”
Victor pushed his chair back, the legs scraping sharply against the tile floor. His partner, the one in the gray suit who always looked like he smelled something unpleasant, stayed seated but leaned forward slightly, his attention sharpening.
“This doesn’t involve you,” Victor said, his voice tight.
The stranger didn’t even look at him right away. Instead, he brushed his thumb lightly across my knuckles—a small, deliberate gesture that somehow grounded me more than anything else—and then turned, placing himself just enough in front of me that I could feel the shift in the room.
“Funny,” he replied calmly. “Because it seems like it involves my wife.”
The word wife landed differently this time. He didn’t rush it. Didn’t exaggerate it. Just let it sit there, solid and unchallenged.
Victor’s jaw tightened. “We’re handling a legal matter.”
“Then you can handle it through proper channels,” the man said. “Not by cornering her at work.”
Something flickered in Victor’s expression then—not fear, exactly, but irritation laced with something sharper. “You don’t understand what’s at stake here.”
“No,” the stranger said quietly. “I think I do.”
