I start the day thinking a line-up is gonna be a cakewalk after my weekend. However, on the way to the courthouse, I start to freak out. It hits me that a line-up means I have to see Madison again. We’ll be in the same place, a few feet away from one another.

Like we were this weekend. If an ultra-secure bunker couldn’t protect me, can a couple of cops?

If they’re like Dom, yes. I’ve stared at his contact information in my phone a zillion times today, wishing I had the nerve to text him, if only to ask if he’s okay. Given my intention to drop him out of my life, I don’t think it’s a good idea.

I put my phone away as I arrive to the courthouse. Fabio leads me up the stairs with another of the bodyguards trailing. Oh, and the press snapping pictures like crazy.

Chris – I can’t bring myself to call him anything else yet – is waiting for me with two members of his team and two other men in suits. We walk into the station and through several hallways filled with cops. I keep telling myself Dom’s probably at home, recovering, but I still catch myself looking for him.

We make it to a small, dark room looking into an empty interview room. We’re on the other side of the two-way mirror. The DA is waiting for me with Detective Wilson and another two people. It’s crowded.

“Ms. Abbott-Renou, please step forward,” the DA says. “We’re here to identify the man who attacked you three months ago. Understood?”

“Yes,” I reply.

“Step up to the window. They can’t see you.”

I do. One by one, five men enter the other room. They’re all similar in size to Madison: tall, dark haired, athletic. But there’s only one of them I dream about.

“Number four,” I say without hesitation.

The five men rotate to the side.

“Yep.” My voice is shaking, and I clench my hands. “Number four.”

He’s a few feet away. One hand goes to my neck as I stare at him. He doesn’t look drunk today, but he still appears disheveled.

The five men file out. I suck in a deep breath then face the DA.

“You heard her,” he says to the two guys in suits standing beside Chris. “Charges will be filed first thing in the morning for both the rape and assault and battery this past weekend.”

“A word, Tenet,” one of the two says.

The DA files out with the two of them. I look at Chris. With his game face on, he might as well be a stranger. I want to stay right here in the room, until someone can prove Madison is in jail or gone from the building.

“They’re trying to negotiate the charges,” Chris explains.

“Why are they charging him and not Robert with the incident?” I ask.

“Madison confessed. The DA is treading carefully with the Connors.”

I gaze into the empty room on the other side of the window and shiver. “Madison knows where I live.”

“He’s got a restraining order, and you have a full team of bodyguards.”

I gaze up at him, wishing he’d give me some sign things will be okay. It’s not Chris’s way. I’m about to piss him off by getting lippy when the door opens, and the DA appears without the two other suits. He and Chris exchange a look.

“Good,” Chris says. “If you are through with Ms. Abbott-Renou, we’ll be leaving.”

“Done on my end. You got a tough attorney, Ms. Abbott-Renou.”

Chris doesn’t respond but opens the door into the hall.

“Don’t piss him off,” I whisper at the DA as I pass him.

If Chris hears me, he gives no indication as we walk down the hallway and outside. I suck in deep breaths, unaware of how tight my chest is until I try to breathe more deeply. I’m stressing bad, near freaking out.

“You’re confident a piece of paper and a few bodyguards will keep him away?” I ask, facing him.

“I am.”

We walk outside to the front of the courthouse. Chris starts down the stairs, trailed by his two lackeys.

“What next?” I ask and scramble after him. I’m getting good at ignoring the paparazzi.

“Go home. You’re flunking math. You need to study.”

I stop when we reach the car. Chris’s lackeys get in. Fabio is waiting for me a few feet away, and another bodyguard a hundred feet away, towards my apartment.

“Seriously? Do my homework? Do you know how lame that is?” I ask. Chris gets into the car, and I hold the door open. “No good-job-for-not-passing-out-Mia or don’t worry, the bad guy won’t get you?”

“How about a reminder not to mouth off to the DA, the man who doesn’t have to do what your attorney says but does because we went to college together?” Chris climbs out of the car to keep the press from overhearing.

Surprised, I stare at him a minute then back down. “I’ll do my damn homework.”

I turn on my heel and walk away. I pissed him off. He’s not joking about pushing back. Instead of being offended, I start to smile. I have a father who cares. He’s about as warm and friendly as a man-eating polar bear, but he’s mine. He’s going to win, even if he drives me crazy in the meantime. Even if winning means Mama never comes home.

I imagine my advice to the DA is right. Pissing off Chris is not something anyone in his right mind does. If he intends to keep the mother of his kid away forever, what can he do to someone like Robert Connor?

Molly’s text distracts me. So … you know, it reads.

I’m not sure what to say to that. I don’t understand the connection between Chris, Mom and my pseudo-siblings, who are in reality my cousins. I’m not about to ask Chris what those relationships are supposed to look like now, and I’m afraid of what Molly will say if I ask her. Instead, I pull up Dom’s name again on my phone and stare at it.

I’m a coward. He’s gonna hate me.

He deserves better than me and my jacked up family, I tell myself. I switch to Molly’s text and type a response.

You don’t hate me?

She sends me a smiley face in response. I stuff the phone in my pocket.

Dysfunctional doesn’t begin to describe my family. I have a father who isn’t mine, half-siblings who are cousins, and a mother who’s manipulated everyone to the point she’s being banned from my life. And then there’s Chris.

I reach my building safely and find Ari waiting for me in the lobby. She hugs me, and we walk into the elevator together. I wait until we’re safe in my apartment.

“You have to swear you’ll never tell anyone this secret ever,” I say, turning to her.

“I bet I already know.” Her eyes are twinkling.

“There’s no way you can possibly know this one.”

“Chris is your dad?”

My mouth drops open. She giggles and slings her book bag on the kitchen counter.

“My dad figured it out, and they had a talk. Dad told me,” she admitted. “He already swore me to silence, but since you brought it up ...”

“I hate my life.” I scowl at her.

“I’d rather be Chris’s daughter than Gerard’s.”

“I’m not sure yet. Chris has rules and shit. Gerard didn’t care what I did.”

Ari smiles triumphantly about knowing one of my secrets before I do. I make a face at her.

“Does your family have so many secrets?” I ask.

“No. We’re pretty normal.”

“Omigod. There’s nothing normal about owning a bunker or planning escape routes for the zombie apocalypse everywhere you go!”

“I’d rather live in a bunker than find out I have a different dad!”

“Ouch!”

“That’s for not telling me any of your other secrets,” she says, smug.

“I keep thinking the surprises will end and life will go back to normal,” I say. “That won’t happen, will it?”

“There can’t be too many more family secrets out there, and no one can come near you now. That leaves … Dom.”

“Eh. Nothing there,” I say. “Even if there is, Chris will make him agree to a full background investigation. I’ll never be able to date with him as a dad.”

“At least you don’t have to change your last name.”

“What?”

“To Chris’s, since he’s your daddy.”

“I don’t think I can ever tell anyone else,” I say. “We sound like inbred hillbillies, don’t we?”

“You have bad luck with families.” She giggles.

She has a point. There’s never been anything normal about my robot-dad. I don’t know how he got Gerard to change his mind about going public about me. I wish I could ask him. Maybe someday, when all this stuff is over, I can.

Or maybe, I really don’t want to know. It probably has something to do with money or politics or secrets, because those are the only things anyone in my family respects.

“He’s been good to me this summer,” I murmur.

“He still scares me.”

“I don’t think he scares me anymore.”

“Dom wouldn’t be scared.”

I eye Ari. She sighs. Even hearing Dom’s name tanks my mood.

“I really like him, Ari,” I admit at last.

“Duh. I knew that all along.”

“Too bad I fucked it up.”

“I doubt it’s something that can’t be fixed, if you’d try.”

I shrug. “Ari, I’m still afraid of my own shadow. I’m terrified of men. I keep thinking, what if he’s like Robert?”

“You know he’s not. Robert is a psycho.”

“All men are psychos. Look at Benji.”

“You know better.”

I do, but I’m not going to admit it. No matter what I feel, I have to let Dom go.