Chapter Nine: Not Alone

The phone buzzed again.

Samantha: Please, don’t shut me out.

And Daniel looked to his phone. Marissa’s question still burning in his mind.

Did he want to respond?

He hesitated a moment. Until he felt Marissa’s hand come find his, and he looked up to find her warm brown eyes following him. “It’s all right,” she said to him. “I’m right here, you don’t have to do this alone.”

Something in his chest loosened, not completely, but enough. Because even though they weren’t friends in the usual sense, even though they were both collateral in someone else’s betrayal, it mattered. Her presence mattered.

Daniel quietly waited a moment as another message came in from Samantha.

Samantha: Please. Just talk to me. I need to know you’re all right.

Daniel scoffed under his breath. “Now she wants to know how I’m doing?”

Marissa gave a small, weary shake of her head. “I don’t have the answer to that,” she said. “But do you want my advice?”

“Always,” Daniel murmured, a ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“I think…” she paused, surprising even herself. “I think you should respond.”

Daniel turned toward her, startled. “You think I should talk to her?”

“Say what you will of her,” she said, “but at least she’s worried. Olivia?” She gave a dry, bitter smile. “I still haven’t heard from her.”

Daniel stared at the table. The dull, worn laminate. The fading blue of the napkin holder. He felt hollow. He didn’t want to give Samantha more of himself, at least not tonight, but he also didn’t want her to worry. Maybe he was weak, or a sucker, but she was also the mother of his child.

He tapped his phone once. The screen glowed. The words were still there. After a long pause he nodded, “Okay.”

After a long beat, he nodded. “Okay.”

Marissa sat back slightly. “You want to call her?”

Daniel looked toward the window. The streetlight outside blinked like a faulty nerve. He didn’t want her to hear his voice, at least not yet. But maybe she could read what he couldn’t say.

“No,” he said. “But I’ll text her.”

He stared at the screen, and he typed away, he must have deleted and retyped the message a dozen times before he settled on something.

Daniel: I’m not okay. But I’m alive. I need time. That’s all I have to give you right now.

He wondered if she’d respond, maybe she would. Maybe she wouldn’t, in the end it didn’t matter tonight. He set his phone down, putting it on do not disturb mode.

If Samantha responded, he could read it in the morning. Right now, he couldn’t hold more than he already was.

He checked his watch.

Marissa glanced over, her voice soft but tired. “It’s getting late, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he murmured.

She looked down at her half-finished coffee, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. It wasn’t amused, just dry, worn. “I’m not sure where Olivia is tonight,” she said. “But I don’t really want to risk walking into our apartment and finding out.”

“What, you think she’d actually be stupid enough to go back to your place tonight?”

Marissa arched a brow. “After the kind of week she’s had? The only consistent thing about Olivia is that she does the wrong thing with conviction.”

That drew an actual laugh out of him. Tired, hoarse, but real.

“Point taken,” he said.

They both sat there a moment longer, that small spark of shared dark humor lingering like the last breath before a storm.

Then Marissa added, more seriously, “But I could use something stronger than coffee.”

Daniel hesitated just a moment. Then, “I’m staying at the Arcadia.”

Marissa arched a brow. “Fancy.”

He smirked. “Corporate discount.”

She tilted her head, dry. “Is that what they’re calling hush money these days?”

Daniel huffed. “It’s got a pretty well-stocked mini-bar.”

She held his gaze for a beat, something unreadable flickering behind her eyes. Not flirtation exactly—but closeness. Familiarity. The kind that comes when two people have seen too much and survived anyway.

“Lead the way, Reyes.”