Page 55 of Infamous

I smile at that. “Control,” I echo, tasting the familiar word like it’s an elixir. “Yeah. That makes sense.”

The corner of her mouth lifts a little. “What about you?” she asks. “What do you do, Jude Mercer?”

For a second, I let the truth bloom and die on my tongue. Then I say it anyway, because I want to hear her laugh. “I’m a serial killer, remember?”

She blinks, and then she laughs. A real laugh, the kind that comes from somewhere deep, belly and throat and history all tangled together. It’s the same sound I used to live for, the sound that made the rest of the world feel like background noise. It hits me so hard my fingers tighten on the cup.

When her laughter fades, she wipes at her eyes, smiling for the first time in days. “You’re ridiculous,” she says.

“Maybe.” I grin, but there’s an ache underneath it.You used to call Lucian ridiculous, too.

For a moment, the world feels dangerously close to perfect. The light, the coffee, the woman who doesn’t know she’s sitting across from her own history.

I study her quietly, then ask, “What’s bothering you today? Other than the idiot who can’t leave you alone?”

Her shoulders slump a little. “My boss,” she says, voice low. “He wants me to go to dinner with one of the hospital benefactors. It’s not a request, apparently.”

Her boss is strong-arming her into dinner with someone she clearly doesn’t want to see. She says it like it’s nothing, but I catch the flicker in her voice, the way her fingers tighten around the cup.

I force myself to stay still, to breathe past the heat crawling up my throat. My jaw tightens anyway, a reflex I can’t hide. The thought of her sitting across from another man, smiling out ofpoliteness, pretending to be comfortable, is enough to make my hands itch.

“There was a lawsuit against the hospital last year. We took a pretty big hit,” she continues, staring into her cup. “He seems to think a public display with someone influential will ‘reflect well’ on the hospital.”

She doesn’t have to say it. I can hear the exhaustion in her tone, the resignation of someone who’s been cornered before.

“You shouldn’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” I say, sharper than intended.

She looks up, eyes meeting mine. There’s something searching in them, something that makes it hard to breathe. “It’s not that easy.”

“It’s not,” I admit. “But sometimes the hardest thing in the world is the only right thing to do. The only thing that makes sense.”

Her gaze lingers on me for a heartbeat too long. Then she sighs, a soft, defeated sound. “You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

I look at her, at the faint bruise under her eye where sleep should live, at the small scar on her wrist that no one else notices. “Maybe I do,” I say quietly.

The café hums around us, soft and warm. Outside, the rain starts to fall. It’s light at first, then heavier, the sound like static against the windows. Nadia turns her head toward the window and stares at the storm, lost somewhere far away.

I watch her reflection in the glass and all I can think is,If anyone touches you, I’ll end the world.

But all I say is, “You want another coffee?”

She smiles, small and tired, defeated. “Sure,” she says.

I rise, her laugh still echoing in my head, and I know I’d kill to hear that sound again.

34

NADIA

The café is nearly empty now, the hum of conversation thinning to a low murmur beneath the gentle scrape of spoons against porcelain. The lights have dimmed a little since we arrived, softened to a warm, amber hue that makes everything feel more intimate than it should. My cup sits between my hands, half-empty, the last swirl of coffee gone cold - but I’m not ready to leave yet.

Jude sits across from me, his posture relaxed, one long leg crossed over the other. There’s an ease to him, a quiet confidence that fills the space without demanding it. He’s watching me, not in that predatory way men sometimes do, but with a kind of curious patience - like he’s waiting for me to finish untangling my own thoughts before I speak them aloud.

And God, I’ve been forthcoming tonight. Too forthcoming.

I’ve told him things I haven’t said out loud in years. About my work, my frustration, the exhaustion that clings to my bones. About the way the system grinds good people down until they start to look like the monsters they swore to fight. He listens without interrupting, without pity, and that somehow makes it worse. It’s been so long since someone justlistened.

I can’t remember the last time it was this easy to talk to a man.