The panic attack hit at 3:17 in the morning.

Valentina knew the exact time because she had been staring at the microwave clock in the safe house kitchen for nearly twenty minutes before her breathing finally stopped feeling normal.

Outside, Brighton Beach disappeared beneath relentless rain and distant police sirens. Neon signs flickered weakly through the apartment windows while old pipes rattled somewhere inside the building walls.

The safe house should have felt safer than the Moretti penthouse.

Instead, the silence made everything worse.

No staff.

No marble hallways.

No distractions.

Just her thoughts replaying endlessly.

The basement.

The cells.

Marco screaming beneath fluorescent lights.

And Luca smiling afterward.

Valentina sat alone at the small kitchen table wrapped in one of Adrian’s spare hoodies because her own clothes still smelled faintly like rain and fear. A half-empty cup of cold coffee rested untouched near her hands.

Her chest tightened again.

Too fast.

Too sharp.

She inhaled slowly.

Didn’t help.

The room suddenly felt smaller.

Warmer.

Harder to breathe inside.

No.

Not now.

She pressed trembling fingers harder against the edge of the table while forcing air into lungs that suddenly refused cooperating.

Across the apartment, Adrian looked up immediately from the surveillance monitors.

He noticed everything.

Always.

He crossed the room fast without making it feel frantic.

“Valentina.”

She shook her head once instantly.

Wrong response.

Speaking felt impossible suddenly.

The panic climbed higher beneath her ribs, hot and crushing and humiliating all at once.

Not now.

Not in front of him.

Adrian crouched beside her chair immediately, eyes sharp with assessment but voice carefully calm.

“Look at me.”

She couldn’t.

The room blurred strangely around the edges while her pulse pounded hard enough to make her hands numb.

Adrian reached for her carefully then stopped himself halfway.

Giving her a choice.

Always giving her a choice.

“Can I touch you?” he asked quietly.

Valentina nodded once.

That was enough.

His hand settled gently against the back of her neck first, grounding instead of restraining. Warm. Steady. Real.

“Breathe slower,” he murmured. “Not deeper. Slower.”

She tried.

Failed.

Adrian stayed calm anyway.

“Focus on my voice.”

Another sharp breath tore through her chest.

“I can’t—”

“Yes, you can.”

The certainty in his tone cut cleanly through panic.

Not forceful.

Anchoring.

Adrian shifted closer beside her chair, one hand still steady against her neck while the other rested lightly against her wrist.

Checking her pulse.

Military again.

Or medical.

Or both.

“Look at me,” he repeated quietly.

This time she managed it.

His gray-blue eyes locked onto hers immediately.

Steady.

Controlled.

Completely unlike the chaos inside her chest.

“Good,” Adrian said softly. “Stay here with me.”

The panic didn’t disappear instantly.

But it stopped getting worse.

That mattered.

Rain hammered against the windows while the tiny apartment remained wrapped in dim kitchen light and exhausted silence.

Valentina focused entirely on his voice.

On his breathing.

On the rough warmth of his hand against her skin.

Slowly, painfully slowly, air finally returned to her lungs without feeling sharp enough to break them.

Embarrassment followed immediately afterward.

She looked away first. “Fantastic. Love this for me.”

Adrian didn’t move.

Didn’t joke.

Didn’t offer pity.

“You’ve had them before,” he said quietly.

Not a question.

Valentina stared down at the coffee cup between her hands. “Only when things get especially catastrophic.”

The corner of his mouth almost moved slightly.

Almost.

“That sounds unhealthy.”

“Thank you, doctor.”

Silence settled again.

Not awkward.

Just tired.

Adrian finally removed his hand from the back of her neck slowly, though warmth lingered there afterward.

Valentina became aware of how close he still sat beside her on the kitchen floor.

Too close.

Dangerously close.

But neither of them moved away immediately.

Outside the apartment windows, headlights blurred across wet streets while thunder rolled softly over Brighton Beach.

“You didn’t panic in the basement,” Adrian said after a while.

“I was busy dissociating.”

“That’s not better.”

“No,” she admitted quietly. “It really isn’t.”

For several moments neither spoke.

Then Valentina looked toward him again.

“You knew exactly what that was.”

Adrian’s expression shifted slightly.

Tiny change.

Enough.

“You’ve seen it before.”

“Yes.”

“With soldiers?”

“With survivors.”

The answer landed heavily between them.

Valentina studied him carefully now beneath the dim apartment light.

The exhaustion around his eyes.

The constant tension in his shoulders.

The terrifying calm he carried during violence.

None of it came from nowhere.

“You get them too,” she realized softly.

Adrian looked away immediately.

Confirmation.

Her chest tightened for an entirely different reason this time.

“When?” she asked quietly.

“That’s not important.”

“When?”

He stayed silent too long.

Then finally answered without looking at her.

“After missions.”

The word sounded wrong in a normal apartment kitchen.

Missions.

Not jobs.

Not work.

Missions.

Valentina leaned back slowly against the chair. “Jesus Christ, Adrian.”

His jaw tightened faintly. “Don’t start.”

“Start what?”

“Looking at me differently.”

The answer came sharper than intended.

Real fear hid underneath it.

Not fear of judgment.

Fear of intimacy.

That realization unsettled her unexpectedly.

Valentina watched him carefully for several seconds before speaking again.

“I already look at you differently.”

Adrian finally turned toward her fully then.

The room became very quiet.

Too quiet.

Because they both understood now that she wasn’t talking about suspicion anymore.

Something vulnerable flickered briefly behind his eyes before he buried it again beneath control.

Always control.

Then Valentina noticed something else.

His hands.

Shaking.

Very slightly.

Almost invisible unless someone watched carefully.

But she watched carefully.

Always.

Not fear.

Adrenaline crash.

Memory.

Maybe both.

The realization hit harder than she expected.

Because Adrian hid pain so naturally she sometimes forgot he carried any at all.

Without thinking, she reached toward him slowly.

His body went still immediately.

Not rejecting.

Bracing.

Valentina gently wrapped her fingers around his trembling hand.

Warm skin.

Scarred knuckles.

Tiny involuntary shaking beneath her touch.

Adrian stared down at their hands silently.

Then toward her.

For one dangerous moment, the entire world narrowed into the quiet apartment kitchen and the feeling of his hand inside hers.

No walls.

No lies.

No violence.

Just exhaustion and honesty and rain outside the windows.

“You never talk about what happened to you,” Valentina said softly.

Adrian’s gaze held hers steadily now.

“No,” he replied quietly. “Because then it becomes real again.”