Chapter 5 Mia

Mia

The police leave eventually.

Not right away. They give my parents numbers, instructions, warnings. They repeat again that I should not go anywhere alone. They say they will be in touch. They say they are doing everything they can.

Then the door closes behind them, and the three of us are alone.

For about five seconds.

Then my mother turns to me and says, “You’re going to Italy.”

I stare at her. “What?”

“The house is empty right now. It’s secure. Private. There’s staff there. You can stay for a few months until this is handled.”

“A few months?” My voice comes out too high. “Are you serious?”

“It’s the safest option,” my father says.

“No. No, it isn’t an option at all.”

“Mia.”

“I’m not leaving the country because some psychopath scared me.”

My mother flinches. “He didn’t scare you. He threatened you after murdering someone.”

“Exactly. So I should just run away and hide?”

“You should stay alive,” my father says.

“I am alive.”

“For now.”

The words hit hard enough to make me stop.

My father’s jaw tightens, but he does not take them back.

My mother steps closer. “Sweetheart, please. We are trying to protect you.”

“You’re trying to ship me away.”

“To keep you safe.”

“I don’t want to go to Italy.”

“Then we’ll get you a bodyguard,” my father says.

I actually laugh.

It sounds wrong. Sharp and cracked and not like me at all.

“No.”

“Mia.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“This is not a negotiation.”

“It is my life.”

“And you almost lost it.”

I look away because I cannot stand the way his face crumples around the words. I cannot stand that he is scared. I cannot stand that his fear feels like another thing being placed on my shoulders.

Our house has always been protected. Cameras. Gates. Alarms. Security at events. Drivers whenever my parents get nervous. It comes with being their daughter. Their faces are on billboards and movie posters and streaming banners. People know their names. Sometimes people know mine.

But I have spent years insisting I do not need someone following me around.

No bodyguards at school.

No security in coffee shops.

No huge man standing outside lecture halls while everyone whispers about me.

I am already “Mia Brooke, daughter of,” everywhere I go. I refuse to become “Mia Brooke, poor thing, did you see the guy watching her?”

“I don’t want a bodyguard,” I say. “I don’t want someone following every move I make.”

My mother presses her fingers to her mouth. “And I don’t want to get a call saying they found you in an alley.”

My chest caves in.

No one speaks for a moment.

Then my father says, quieter, “You have two choices. Italy or a bodyguard.”

“I choose neither.”

“That is not one of the choices.”

I stare at him.

He looks exhausted. Older than he did yesterday. Like the night carved something out of him too.

“I just want to go to school tomorrow,” I say, and my voice breaks in the middle. “I want to go to class. I want to go to the shelter. I want to see my friends. I want to act like this never happened for five minutes.”

My mother’s eyes fill again. “You can’t act like this never happened.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

I do not answer.

Because maybe I don’t.

Maybe some stupid, desperate part of me believes that if I put on jeans, go to class, feed the dogs, and sit between Kaitlyn and Isabel like always, the alley will turn into a nightmare I had after too little sleep and too many drinks.

Maybe if I keep moving, I will not have to feel the dead man’s hand around my wrist.

Maybe if I stay here, in my own life, I will still belong to myself.

My father exhales. “We can’t be here with you twenty-four seven.”

I look up.

The room goes quiet again, but this time it is different.

This time, I know before he says it.

My mother looks down.

“You’re leaving,” I say.

Neither of them answers quickly enough.

I laugh again, but this one hurts worse. “Of course.”

“Mia,” my mother says. “We’re scheduled to be on set for the next month.”

“You’re still going?”

“We’re trying to move what we can,” my father says. “But contracts are complicated.”

“Right. Contracts.”

His face hardens. “That is not fair.”

“No,” I say. “It’s not.”

My mother reaches for me, but I step back.

She stops, her hand hanging between us.

And suddenly I am so tired I can barely stand. Too tired to fight. Too tired to keep being angry. Too tired to explain why being protected by strangers while my parents fly across the world feels less like love and more like proof that I am another responsibility they can outsource.

“It’s for your own good,” my father says.

I hate that sentence.

I hate how gentle he sounds when he says it.

I hate that part of me believes him.

Because I can still see the knife. I can still hear the voice. I can still feel hot breath against my neck and blood drying on my skin.

I don’t want Italy.

I don’t want a bodyguard.

I don’t want any of this.

But as my parents stand in front of me, terrified and determined and already halfway to deciding for me, I understand something with a sinking kind of clarity.

I might not have a choice.