Chapter 10 - Not Lonely
Years later, people still told the dramatic version.
The ruined room.
The peeling walls.
The rope.
Elena hanging beneath the cracked ceiling.
Victor smirking by the broken desk.
She belongs to me.
Adrian entering in the black trench coat.
No. She’s my blood.
Victor saying he was outnumbered.
Adrian saying, Only in this room.
Elena staring at her brother through tears.
The raised hand.
Close your eyes, little star.
Victor’s confidence draining as he realized the doorway behind Adrian had already become a wall.
It sounded like revenge.
And yes, part of it was.
Adrian would never pretend there was no satisfaction in watching Victor’s certainty collapse.
There was satisfaction in hearing Victor’s own voice destroy him.
There was satisfaction in seeing a man who treated Elena like property learn that she had family, evidence, witnesses, and a name he could not own.
But the deeper victory was not Victor’s fear.
It was Elena opening her eyes again.
It was her choosing her own apartment, her own locks, her own work, her own voice.
It was Adrian learning that protection did not mean taking over her life after saving it.
It was the word “blood” becoming not ownership, but belonging.
And it was Elena, years later, standing inside a gallery filled with warm light, watching a young woman read the Little Star emergency card and quietly slip it into her coat pocket.
Adrian stood beside her.
Older now.
Still in black.
Still terrifying to strangers.
Still terrible at shelves.
Elena glanced at him.
“You’re hovering.”
“I am standing.”
“You are hovering aggressively.”
“I can hover from farther away.”
“That would help.”
He took one step back.
She smiled.
Then her eyes moved to the window.
Outside, evening settled over the city.
One star appeared above the rooftops.
Small.
Distant.
Not lonely.
May you like
Elena touched the faint scar around her wrist, then let her hand fall.
She did not look away.
