Page 5 of The Cost of Silence

I’m shaking so hard, and before I realize it. My hands clutch at the front of his coat, fingers digging in like they know something my brain hasn’t caught up to yet. My heart is slamming so hard it feels like it might break free.

For a second, neither of us moves.

I can feel him everywhere, too close, too solid, his breathing steady against my temple. The world feels tilted, unreal, like I stepped out of one version of the day and into another entirely.

Then he swears under his breath and pulls back, hauling me upright by the arm. “You always this reckless?” he snaps, voice sharp and furious. “Or did you wake up looking for trouble?”

I blink up at him, still disoriented, the street swimming back into focus.

“You,” I say, because of course it’s him.

“Yeah, me.” His eyes rake over me like he’s cataloguing any damage. “You write a story that paints a target on your back and then walk around alone? Are you really that stupid?”

The shock burns off fast, replaced by heat. “You think this was about my article?”

“I know it was.” He jerks his chin toward the street. “You dig deep enough, you hit things that bite. Don’t act surprised when they do.”

“I did my job.”

“You did more than that.”

“I told the truth.”

“Truth doesn’t try to run you down.”

I square my shoulders, even though my breath still isn’t steady. Adrenaline hums through me, sharp and electric, refusing to let me fold. “So what? I’m supposed to stop doing my job because someone doesn’t like it?”

“You want to play martyr, fine,” he says, voice low and dangerous. “Just stay the hell away from my family while you do it.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

His gaze locks onto mine, dark and unyielding. “Maybe you should be.”

My pulse jumps traitorously, visible at my throat, and I hate that he can see it. Hate that some part of me is still catching up to how close I came to being flattened on the pavement.

He turns away like the conversation is already over, anger radiating off him in waves that leave the air tight and charged.

I stand there for a second longer, heart pounding, watching his back as he walks off, furious, controlled, and infuriatingly certain.

And only then does the full weight of what just happened finally settle into my bones.

Queens

The train rocks beneath me, metal wheels screeching through tunnels slick with rain. I stand by the door, one hand gripping the cool pole, the other scrolling through congratulatory texts. The car smells faintly of wet wool, coffee, and the metallic tang of brakes, all with the undertone of urine, which makes my nose wrinkle. Someone hums along to music leaking from their headphones, their head bobbing to the beat.

Outside the glass, lights smear across the dark, the city moving too fast to focus on any one thing.

When I finally reach my mother’s stop, the night air hits, warm and damp. It’s a short walk to her house from the subway station, and the rain has finally stopped. The familiar sound of the corner bodega radio playing old Sinatra mixes, and the scent of garlic and fried onions wafting from the apartments above, fills me with nostalgia.

By the time I knock, I can already hear her voice through the door.

“Finally!” she says, ushering me in with a kiss to both cheeks. “You don’t call, you don’t visit, it’s like I have no child at all.”

“I texted this morning, Ma.” I resist the eye roll at her reprimand, but barely. I love my mom, I do. She’s the sweetest, kindest woman, but she also thinks I should be pushing out babies by now, not following my father’s dreams. My father’s death hit us both hard. Witnessing a parent or partner die, when it was meant to be a simple trip to get ice cream, scars you in ways you never get over. But we both handle it differently. Which is why there’s no way in hell I’m telling her what happened earlier.

“That doesn’t count. Texting is what you do when you don’t have time to talk.”

I laugh, hanging up my coat. “You’re still using a flip phone. You can’t text.”