“I knew that.”
“You understood it professionally.”
“I should have understood it personally.”
Liam leaned forward.
“No. You do not get to turn this into another file you’ve mishandled.”
I closed my eyes.
His voice softened.
“You were inside it, Maya.”
For a while, neither of us spoke.
When Priya returned, she told me I would be admitted overnight for observation.
Liam objected to nothing.
That frightened me more than if he had argued.
He was normally incapable of letting a colleague finish a sentence about my health without asking three questions.
But now he sat silently while Priya discussed concussion monitoring, pain management, and follow-up imaging.
Only after she finished did he ask, “Can she have a private room?”
Priya gave him a look.
“She already does.”
“Security?”
“Outside the unit.”
He nodded.
I glanced toward the door.
“Is Ethan still here?”
The room went quiet.
Priya looked at Liam.
Liam looked at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Maya,” he said, “the police are speaking with him.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
The word chilled me.
“No, he isn’t here?”
Liam hesitated.
“They haven’t arrested him.”
My heart began to beat faster.
“Why?”
“I don’t know the details.”
“You talked to Ruiz.”
“Briefly.”
“Liam.”
He rubbed one hand over his face.
“Ethan told officers you became disoriented after drinking wine and fell twice. He said he tried to help you up and that you fought him because you didn’t recognize him.”
I stared at him.
“He said what?”
“There are no cameras inside your house.”
“The hallway camera.”
“Disconnected.”
My stomach turned.
“The doorbell.”
“Apparently offline since yesterday afternoon.”
Of course.
I thought of Ethan standing beneath it two weeks earlier with a ladder.
He had told me the Wi-Fi connection was unstable.
“Neighbors?” I asked.
“Police are talking to them.”
“He hit me.”
“I know.”
“The bruises—”
“Support your statement. But I’m not the detective or the prosecutor, and I won’t lie to you about how quickly this moves.”
A sound rose in my throat.
Not quite a laugh.
Not quite a sob.
“He walked out?”
Liam’s face tightened.
“He left with an attorney.”
I looked toward the window.
Outside, evening had darkened the glass into a mirror.
My own reflection barely looked human to me.
Pale face.
Swollen mouth.
Hospital gown.
For months, I had imagined leaving Ethan.
In every version, I was prepared.
A small apartment waited under an LLC he didn’t know I controlled.
Two suitcases were stored in a locker across town.
A new phone remained sealed in its box.
My passport sat in Liam’s safe.
I had built an exit with the precision of a financial investigation.
But I had never imagined leaving him from a hospital bed while he drove away.
“I need my phone,” I said.
“You don’t have it.”
“A phone.”
“For what?”
“To call Halden.”
Liam stared at me.
“No.”
“What?”
“You have a concussion.”
“The audit team may be at risk.”
“From what?”
“I don’t know.”
