Ira showed up late. In heels. With a bruise beneath her makeup.
"Don't ask," she said before he could speak.
They didn't have sex. She just lay beside him. Breathing. Trembling slightly.
"Did he hit you?"
She didn't answer.
She cried into his shirt.
Ashray held her like someone trying to protect a candle in the wind—knowing it would go out anyway.
"He said he knows," she whispered.
"The watcher?"
"No. My husband."
That was the first time she used that word. Husband. Out loud. It felt heavy. Ugly.
"He won't let me leave," she said. "Not without punishment."
Ashray sat up. "You don't have to stay with him."
"I have nowhere else to go."
"You have me."
She looked at him.
"No, Ashray. I have you right now. There's a difference."
That night, he didn't sleep.
And neither did the man outside in the car—engine off, lights dim, eyes locked on the apartment window.