Page 67 of Infamous

I don’t smile.

I just let go of Michael’s collar and watch him fall.

41

NADIA

The mirror doesn’t soften anything.

It gives me the truth in all its cruelty - the split lip, the swelling, the thread of blood crawling from my hairline. I don’t even look like myself anymore. My hand shakes as I press the ice to my temple. The sting makes me wince, but I welcome it. It’s proof I’m still here.

The woman staring back looks hollow, like she’s already halfway gone.

“How did you get here?” I whisper, my voice cracking in the stillness.

The light overhead hums. It sounds too normal for what just happened. I can’t shake the image of Michael from my head. Nor can my senses extinguish the smell of his cologne as it permeates through my apartment. I can still hear his voice in my head, that twisted calm right before the first hit landed.

I didn’t love him. I barely even liked him. We weren’t together long enough for it to mean anything, but somehow, that didn’t matter to him. He’d built a whole story in his head - a version of us that never existed. I didn’t see it at first, how deep it went. The messages, the waiting outside the hospital, thejealousy over patients. I told myself he’d move on. That he’d get bored. But I was wrong.

He would’ve killed me tonight. I know that now.

The way his hands clenched when he grabbed me, the way he looked through me instead of at me - it was already decided in his head.

If Jude hadn’t shown up…

I can’t even finish that thought. My throat closes around it.

I keep seeing it play out - the door bursting open, the crash of glass, the thud of fists. The silence after. I remember the look on Jude’s face when it was over: not shocked or shaken. Just steady. Cold. Resolute. Like he’d been here before. Like this wasn’t the first time he’d had to step up and save someone.

And that should terrify me.

But all I feel is relief.

That’s the part that breaks me most.

Because I’ve seen too many women come through the trauma ward clinging to that same fragile relief. The ones who made it out alive, whispering “I’m fine” while their hands still trembled. I used to wonder why they went back, why they couldn’t stay away from the danger that almost destroyed them.

Now I understand.

It’s not about trust - it’s about gravity.

You cling to whatever pulls you back from the edge, even if it’s dark, even if it’s wrong.

Jude Mercer feels like that.

A dark pull I don’t understand. A man who keeps showing up right when I need him, like he’s tracking my bad luck. Like he’s part of it.

What are the chances he was outside tonight?

That he found me again?

He said he saw Michael follow me, but I don’t believe that. Michael didn’t follow me. He was already inside the apartment.Waiting. Patient, quiet, sure. Which means Jude didn’t stop anything - he ended it.

I should be afraid of him. I am. But not the way I’m afraid of Michael.

That fear sits deeper. It feels like recognition.

I press the ice harder against my skin. The ache spreads down my neck, over my chest, where the panic still lives. I should call someone. Report it. But I don’t. Because I have no idea where Jude is or where he took Michael. I don’t know the man well enough to know what he’s capable of. If he hurts Michael, I don’t want to be the one to put Jude away for saving me, ethics and morals be damned.