Page 241 of Ricardo

Harrison.

The roses.

The men in her apartment.

Dante on an operating table.

All of it points in one direction now, but I will not drag her through it like an interrogation. I have done enough of those tonight. This is different.

She is different.

I look at our hands.

“I need to know the whole story with Harrison.”

She swallows and stares at her connected hands.

“I know you may not be ready to trust me with all of it yet,” I say, keeping my voice low. “But—”

“I trust you.”

The words come fast.

I lift my eyes to hers.

She swallows hard.

“That isn’t the problem.” Her voice shakes. “I trust you, Ricardo.”

“Then tell me what the problem is.”

Her eyes fill again.

She opens her mouth and then closes it again.

Then she takes one shaky breath and speaks. “I’m ashamed.”

My chest tightens at her words.

She keeps her eyes down. “I’m embarrassed. I’m embarrassed that I let it go on so long. That I let him make me smaller and quieter and easier for him to handle. That I knew something was wrong, and I kept finding reasons to stay because leaving felt worse than surviving one more day with it.”

I say nothing.

She needs to say this.

“I’m embarrassed that I let it get to that point,” she whispers.

“What point?” I ask gently.

She sniffles and wipes at her cheek with the heel of her free hand.

“At first, everything was fine,” she says. “It wasn’t wonderful. It wasn’t some great love story. But it was fine. He was handsome, educated, polite, from the right family. He knew the right people. He understood how to move navigate the world my parents cared about. My mother loved him. My father respected his family.”

Her mouth twists.

“It was the relationship they wanted for me. And I think, for a long time, it was the relationship I thought I was supposed to want for myself. Picture perfect from the outside.”

I hold her hand a little tighter.