Chapter 172: The Reflection of a Salvatore

He stepped around the broken table, around the spilled milkshake and shattered plates, and reached down — not for Caleb.

For Eliza.

His hand closed around her arm — not violently, not yanking, but firm. Unyielding. Final.

Eliza screamed. “Don’t touch me! What is wrong with you?!”

Her voice was sharp enough to cut glass.

Caleb tried to grab her other arm, but his hand slipped on the tile, and he collapsed again with a groan, clutching his jaw. Eliza’s braid swung wildly as she fought Nate’s grip, her boots scraping against the floor.

Nate didn’t flinch.

He didn’t react at all.

He just pulled her up from the floor, ignoring her sobs, ignoring her attempts to twist away. She stumbled when her feet hit the tile, nearly falling again, but Nate steadied her without looking at her.

Then his other hand reached for me.

I didn’t move.

I couldn’t.

I was still frozen where I stood — shock pinning me in place, my breath stuck somewhere between my ribs and my throat. His fingers wrapped around my arm, not harsh, but absolute. A command. A decision he already made.

“Mila, come on,” he said — low, controlled, terrifyingly calm.

Eliza cried harder. “You’re a monster! You’re— you’re insane!”

Nate didn’t answer.

He didn’t even look at her.

He just started walking, dragging both of us with him.

I stumbled beside him, my heartbeat thundering in my ears. The diner was chaos behind us — people shouting, someone calling 911, the waitress crying near the counter. A man near the window yelled something about calling the police. A woman pulled her child behind her as if Nate were a wild animal loose in the room.

The cold air hit us as Nate pushed through the door, Eliza still screaming, still fighting his grip. His hand tightened on mine when she jerked, keeping me close, keeping me with him.

“Nate, stop!” I said, my voice shaking. “Let her go! Let me go!”

He didn’t.

He marched across the parking lot, his boots hitting the pavement in steady, controlled strides. Eliza stumbled behind him, sobbing, her breath coming in sharp, panicked bursts. My legs struggled to keep up, but Nate didn’t slow. Not once.

The wind cut across the lot, cold and sharp, carrying the distant sound of sirens — or maybe that was just the ringing in my ears.

“Nate,” I said again, louder this time. “Stop.”

He opened the back door and guided Eliza inside — not gently, but not cruelly either. Just… decisively. Like he was removing her from danger. Or removing danger from her.

She curled into the seat, crying so hard her whole body shook.

He didn’t release my arm until he opened the passenger door and practically placed me inside. His hand lingered for a second — not soft, not reassuring, just making sure I was in the car — before he shut the door and walked around to the driver’s side.

The silence inside the car was suffocating.

Eliza sobbed in the backseat, her breath hitching, her voice breaking every few seconds. “Why— why would you do that? Why would you— Nate, why?”

He didn’t answer.

He stared straight ahead, jaw tight, eyes fixed on the road like it was the only thing keeping him from unraveling.

I watched him.

Really watched him.

His hands on the steering wheel were steady. His breathing was controlled. His expression was calm — too calm. The same calm he’d had in the diner. The same calm he’d had right before he hit Caleb.

A calm that didn’t belong to the Nate I knew.

A calm that belonged to someone else.

Someone colder.

Someone dangerous.

Someone like his mother.

A chill crawled up my spine.

I looked at him with genuine fear — fear I hadn’t felt since the night I met him, fear I thought I’d never feel again. He didn’t look back at me. He didn’t look at Eliza. He didn’t look at anything except the road stretching ahead of us.

The drive to the Joneses’ house felt endless.

Every streetlight flickered across his face, carving shadows under his eyes. Every turn felt too sharp, too fast. Eliza cried the whole way, her voice cracking, her breath uneven. She kept whispering, “I didn’t do anything,” like she was trying to convince herself she wasn’t to blame.

I wanted to comfort her.

I wanted to tell her she wasn’t wrong.

But I couldn’t speak.

Not with the fear sitting in my throat.

Not with Nate’s silence filling the car like smoke.

I pressed my back against the seat, trying to breathe evenly, trying to understand what had snapped inside him. He wasn’t shaking. He wasn’t sweating. He wasn’t muttering under his breath.

He was calm.

Too calm.

The kind of calm that came after violence, not before it.

We pulled into her driveway. The porch light was on, casting a warm glow across the front steps — a glow that felt painfully normal compared to the night we’d just had.

Nate put the car in park.

He didn’t turn around.

He didn’t soften.

He didn’t apologize.

He just spoke — one cold, precise sentence.

“You don’t settle for trash.”

Eliza’s sobbing stopped.

Not because she calmed down.

Because she was stunned.

She stared at him, eyes wide, mouth trembling. “What?”

Nate didn’t repeat himself.

He didn’t explain.

He didn’t look at her.

He just unlocked the doors.

Eliza scrambled out of the car, stumbling toward the porch. She didn’t look back. She didn’t say goodbye. She didn’t say anything.

The front door opened — her mother’s silhouette filling the frame — and Eliza collapsed into her arms, crying so hard she could barely breathe.

The door shut behind them.

The porch light stayed on.

I sat in the passenger seat, staring at the house, my heart pounding so hard it hurt.

Nate didn’t move.

He didn’t speak.

He didn’t look at me.

He just sat there, hands still on the wheel, breathing steady, expression unreadable.

I swallowed, my voice barely a whisper. “Nate… what did he say to you?”

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t even blink.

And for the first time since I’d met him, I wasn’t sure if the man sitting beside me was the one I knew…

…or the one he’d spent his whole life trying not to become.