The silence in the car felt different this time.
Not sharp. Not suffocating.
Just heavy.
Alessia sat still, her hands resting in her lap, though her fingers trembled faintly. The adrenaline was fading now slowly, painfully and in its place, something colder settled in.
Fear.
Real fear.
She hadn’t understood how close it had been.
How easily everything could have gone wrong.
How easily she could have
Her breath caught sharply.
No.
She couldn’t let herself think that far.
Rafael didn’t speak.
But she felt him beside her not just his presence, but something steadier. Grounding. Solid in a way nothing else felt right now.
And for the first time since all of this began
She didn’t feel the need to fight him.
That realization unsettled her more than anything else.
The car came to
