Page 152 of This Life of Mine

She studies me again—not searching for weakness, but mapping reality.

“I’m asking because I need to know what this means for me,” she says. “For us. For what could happen.”

“I know,” I reply. “That’s why I’m telling you everything.”

I lean forward slightly. “No one from my past is looking for me. And no one is on my trail. Reese would know immediately if that changed.”

“And if it did?” she asks.

“Then I’d handle it,” I say without hesitation.

She doesn’t challenge that. She nods firmly.

“Okay,” she says.

No panic. No dramatics. Just acceptance paired with awareness.

She’s not asking these questions because she’s afraid.

She’s asking because she’s choosing whether she’s willing to stand beside me.

And as I watch her—steady, thoughtful, unwilling to be naïve. I remember I need to confess something else.

I clear my throat, fully aware of how still the room feels.

Chapter forty-six

Lina

Isit with everything Alex has told me, allowing myself to absorb it instead of pushing it away.

And the strangest part? None of it scares me.

That realization makes me wonder if this is something I should unpack with my therapist—the way trauma has woven itself so deeply into my life that danger no longer registers the way it probably should. I’ve lived so long in survival mode that chaos feels familiar, almost…relatable.

Part of me knows what I’m supposed to do here. This is the point where I thank him for his honesty, stand up, and walk away before anything solid has a chance to form.

This is the moment that usually confirms every reason I stopped wanting anything past casual in the first place. The proof. The cautionary tale. Because relationships have never gone well for me.

I’ve already lived through control disguised as love, through promises that curdled into expectations, scrutiny and suffocation. I’ve done commitment that felt like a trap. And afterall of that, the smarter choice—the safer one—has always been distance. Fun. Temporary. Easy to walk away from.

So every rational part of me should be sayingfuck this. Confirming this is why people like me don’t do serious.

And yet…in the span of days, not months, not years, Alex and I have connected in ways I never did with flings. Or even with the men I once believed I was building a life with.

That alone should scare me, should make me question whether this is trauma bonding, adrenaline, or familiarity masquerading as intimacy.

But none of that captures what this is. This is balance.

Like my constant rocking boat met something steady enough to hold on to—not by force, not by dominance, but by presence. By truth. By calm so consistent it doesn’t need to announce itself.

That’s the part that unsettles me. Because the facts are what they are.

Alex kills and interrogates for a living. He has ties to the mob—whether he wants them or not. There are real risks here.

I have a business. A family. Friends who matter to me. A life I fought like hell to build.

And yet…there’s another truth I can’t ignore.