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My hand finds my stomach instinctively. She’s still. Sleeping, maybe. Or just waiting.

“I know it’s asking a lot,” he continues. “I know you never wanted this to be public. And if you say no, I will protect you just the same. I swear to you, Ivy, this case doesn’t rest on your shoulders alone.”

“But it could fall without me.”

He doesn’t answer that.

I rise, slowly, walking to the far side of the room where the windows reach floor to ceiling and the city sprawls beneath uslike a painted dream. I press my palm to the glass. Somewhere out there, Daniel Holt sits in a holding cell, and the world hasn’t stopped turning. Not yet.

“What would it look like?” I ask, voice steady now.

Ethan stands too, joining me but not too close. “Your name will be in the filing. You’ll be cross-examined. There will be transcripts, maybe even press coverage if it goes federal. His lawyers will try to discredit you. They’ll try to imply consent where there wasn’t any. Twist your silences into complicity. Paint you as emotional, unstable. You’ll be asked why you stayed. Why you didn’t call the police. Why you didn’t tell me sooner.”

I close my eyes. “I already know the answers.”

He nods. “But they won’t make it easy.”

I feel him take a small step closer.

“But the jury will hear your voice. Not just the paper trail. Not just recordings and ledgers and data. They’ll hear you. And maybe that’s what makes them believe it wasn’t just smoke. That this man really did all of it. That he thought he could keep getting away with it.”

The silence presses around us.

“I’m scared,” I say, and it’s not shameful the way I thought it might be. It’s not weakness. It’s just truth. A clear, sharp thing. “I’m scared of going into that courtroom. Of seeing him. Of watching him smirk like he always does. I’m scared of them asking me about the things I never wanted to remember.”

Ethan reaches for my hand. He doesn’t take it, just offers. And when I slide my fingers into his, he holds me like I am something breakable that he still trusts to be strong.

“You won’t do it alone,” he says.

We stand there for a long time. Just breathing. The kind of quiet that holds a decision inside it.

“I thought I was done being afraid,” I say softly. “But maybe fear is part of surviving too. Maybe it means I still have something to lose.”

He doesn’t say anything, just squeezes my hand once.

“You’re asking me to relive it,” I say. “All of it. The silence. The guilt. The shame I thought I buried.”

“I’m not asking,” he says gently. “I’m offering you a chance to help end it.”

I look up at him, my voice steady now. “What happens if I do testify?”

“Legally?” he says, eyes flicking toward the truth again. “It means the prosecution has a human story to match the paper trail. It gives the jury a face to remember. It gives weight to the documents. It says this wasn’t just financial corruption. It was personal. It was targeted. It was violent, even if not in the ways most people recognize.”

He hesitates, then adds, “And it shows you’re not afraid of him anymore.”

My breath stutters. “But Iamafraid.”

He touches my cheek, thumb brushing just under my eye. “Then be afraid. And do it anyway.”

The tears come softly, without theatrics. They slide down my cheeks in a slow, even rhythm, like rain on a window. I don’t sob. I don’t tremble. I just feel them fall, and I let them. Because this is grief too. This is the mourning of silence, of the girl I was before I let Daniel touch my life.

“I’ll do it,” I whisper, the words strange and electric in my mouth. “I’ll testify.”

He exhales, a sound caught between relief and pride, and pulls me into his arms. There’s no celebration in the way he holds me. No triumphant shout. Just the quiet, steady beat of his heart against mine, the promise of something not yet healed, but healing.

And in that stillness, I know something has changed. Not just in the case. Not just in the way the city will remember Daniel Holt. But in me.

I am not the woman who let him define me. I am not the silence he left behind. I am not the victim who stayed quiet because it hurt less than being heard.