Page 71 of Infamous

And God help the next man who forgets it.

43

NADIA

I’m like a moth to a flame, drowning in his light.

Jude Mercer sits across from me, still as stone, his broad frame sinking into my sofa like he’s been here a hundred times before. The air between us hums, thick and heavy, charged with something I can’t quite name. Every breath feels borrowed. Every heartbeat feels like it belongs to him.

I should be asking questions -realquestions. About Michael. About what Jude meant when he said,he won’t ever bother you again.But I don’t. Because deep down, I already know the answer. And for the first time in months, maybe years, I don’t care.

I don’t care where Michael is.

I don’t care what Jude had to do to make that happen.

All I care about is that he’s gone.

And that the man sitting across from me - this stranger who feels too familiar - is the reason I can finally breathe easy again.

When Jude leans forward, his voice drops low, softer than I expect. “Let me look at your wound.”

It catches me off guard. My hand instinctively rises to my temple. “I’m fine,” I say. “I’m the doctor, remember?”

He smiles faintly, the kind of smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Doctors,” he says, “are usually terrible judges of their own injuries.”

I huff out a quiet laugh, though it comes out shakier than I intend. “I’m glad you remember that I’m a doctor. Means you were actually listening.”

“I remember everything,” he says, his tone unreadable. His gaze flicks briefly to my lips, then back to my eyes. “But tell me something, Doctor.”

“What’s that?”

He tilts his head slightly. “How do you fix something that doesn’t want to be healed?”

The question lands heavy. I pause, tasting it, turning it over in my mind like a stone. His voice is calm, but there’s something behind it - something raw, sharp-edged, and bleeding.

“Not everything can be healed,” he adds quietly, before I can respond.

His words linger in the air, rich with double meanings I can’t unravel fast enough. He’s not just talking about scars. He’s talking about himself. About the shadows in his eyes that look older than time, about the ghosts that seem to follow him from room to room.

“I don’t know,” I finally whisper. “Maybe not everything can be fixed.”

He looks at me for a long time after that, like he’s trying to decide whether to believe me or not. His hands stay planted on his knees, fingers curled slightly, knuckles white. There’s restraint in the way he sits, a kind of controlled violence simmering just beneath the surface.

The air hums between us again, electric, dangerous. I can feel the tension crawling along my skin like static.

“Why are you here, Jude?” I ask finally.

He lifts his eyes to mine, steady and unflinching. “You know why, Nadia.”

My name sounds different in his mouth - rougher, more intimate. I swear it pulls something low and dark from inside me.

There’s a moment - a small, invisible shift - and suddenly it’s like the world has narrowed to this room, this moment, this man. I can hear the faint buzz of the refrigerator. The hum of my own pulse in my ears. The rise and fall of his chest.

He leans forward slightly, and for a second, I think he’s going to touch me. But his hands stay where they are, pressed firmly against his knees.

“Do you want me to leave?” he asks.

It’s not a challenge. It’s a promise. Whatever I say next, he’ll honor it. I know that instinctively. There’s something in his eyes - darkness, yes, but also respect. A quiet sort of reverence that feels almost out of place in a man like him.