Page 42 of The Cost of Silence

They’re trembling.

Gently. But undeniably.

And suddenly the fight drains out of me.

“I hate this,” I whisper. “Needing help.”

He studies me with an expression I can’t quite name. Not pity. Definitely not softness. More like… understanding carved into stone.

“Everyone needs help sometimes,” he says.

“Do you?”

His jaw shifts, the smallest crack in his armor. “Yes, even me,” he says quietly.

Something in my chest pulls tight.

Before I can respond, he nods toward the hallway. “There’s something else.”

“Oh, God,” I groan. “That tone never means good things.”

He stands, which feels like the ground shifting, and gestures for me to follow. I rise carefully and trail him down the hall. He stops at a door I didn’t notice yesterday, then swings it open.

I gasp.

The room is filled, not cluttered, butfilled,with bags. Designer. Department store. Boutique. Shoes. Coats. Jeans. Sweaters. Lingerie boxes stacked in neat piles.

My cheeks burn. “What… is all this?”

“Your clothes,” he says simply.

“My clothes?”

“You don’t have any,” he reminds me. “And I’m not letting you walk around in pain wearing the same jeans you got attacked in, so I had my assistant get you a few things.”

My eyes go comically wide. “A few things.This isn’t a few things, Nico.”

He waves that away, as if it’s of no consequence that he must have spent thousands of dollars on clothes for me.

“I could’ve ordered clothes or gone to the thrift store.”

“No.” He looks almost offended by the suggestion. “You’re not lifting a finger for anything right now.”

“I can’t accept all of this, Nico.”

“You can,” he says. “And you will.”

My throat goes tight. I swallow hard, blinking against a sting I’m not ready to unpack. “This is too much.”

“It’s not enough,” he says quietly.

We stand there in the doorway. Close. Too close. The air charged and warm, the images from our earlier conversation still etched in my mind.

He reaches out and gently brushes a piece of hair behind my ear.

I swear my heartbeat forgets how to function.

“You’re safe here,” he murmurs.