“Yes.” Simple. Final.
No justification, no excuse.
The honesty of it knocked something loose in her chest. She’d expected denial, rationalization, the usual Heart propaganda about necessary evils and greater goods. Not flat out acknowledgment of what he was.
She moved without thinking, drawn by the ache screaming beneath her sternum. Her hand reached for his collar, fingers finding the dried blood. Greyson went stiff but didn’t stop her as she traced the stain.
“This boy,” she started, her voice a whisper. “What was his name?”
“Marcus Chen.” No hesitation. “From Cardinal South. Three younger siblings. Mother works in the processing plants. Father executed three years ago for smuggling.”
Each detail was a knife precisely placed. He knew exactly who he’d killed, knew the life he’d ended and the lives he’d destroyed in the process.
And still he’d pulled the trigger.
“You’re sick.” She pulled back, the blood ghosting over the pad of her finger making her skin crawl. “You know what you are doing is evil and you do it anyway.”
“Evil.” Greyson seemed to taste the word, roll it around in his mouth like a fine wine. “Is that what you call it when you slit someone’s throat for credits? When you poison a Cardinal merchant who skimmed from the wrong shipment? Or is it only evil when I do it?”
“I never pretended to be anything other than what I am. I kill people who help the Heart, not those oppressed by it. And I’m not ashamed of that. Not ashamed to be a killer if it means making the Heart suffer.”
He pulled the bottle from her fingers and took a large drink. “The only difference is you get to choose your contracts. I don’t. We’re both murderers. We just pay a different price for those deaths.”
“What price do you pay?” Shadera spat back at him.
His eyes flickered to the papers on the floor behind her so quickly she almost missed it. A shadow fell over his eyes, something haunted filling his irises.
“You wanted me to kill you, didn’t you? You wanted to die. I saw it in your eyes when you took off your mask. You wanted me to end it.”
He went still.
“You don’t know what you saw,” he said quietly, his eyes not meeting hers.
“I knowexactlywhat I saw. I’ve seen that look before. In the mirror.”
Shadera blamed the honesty on the vodka, or maybe it was exhaustion. She watched him, his eyes still locked on the papers behind her, and her mind drifted back to the medical report, how he’d kept it. The evidence of abuse hidden behind clinical language.
“Your father nearly killed you three years ago.”
His expression didn’t change, but she caught the minute flinch in his shoulders, the way his breathing hitched for just a moment. Her guess had been correct.
“Training accident,” he said.
“Bullshit.” She picked up the report, waving it between them. “These injuries—broken ribs, internal bleeding, skull fracture—someone beat you,systematically. Someone who knew exactly how much damage you could take without dying.”
“Drop it.” The words came out of Greyson low and dangerous.
She’d finally found something. A crack in his armor.
“What did you do? Refuse an execution? Show mercy to a rebel? Or did he just need to remind you who owns you?”
He moved faster than Shadera expected, closing the distance between them in one stride. His hand wrapped around her throat, not quite painful but tight enough to make her freeze. She could see the vein pulsing along his throat, the barely controlled fury in those blue eyes.
“I said, drop it,” Greyson growled down at her, his fingers flexing against her skin.
She should’ve backed down. Should’ve recognized the danger in his voice. Instead she smiled up at him.
“Did you cry?” She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “When he broke your bones, when he made you understand what you really are to him—just another tool, another weapon to maintain his power—did you cry?”
