I headed for the door.
"Kai—"
I stopped. Didn't turn around. Couldn't look at her right now.
"That's not—I didn't mean—"
"It's fine. You're right to be afraid. Right to want distance. I am exactly what you called me. A monster. And monsters don't get happy endings." I forced myself to look back at her. "Get some rest. I'll make sure you're left alone from now on."
I walked out.
Closed the door behind me.
Leaned against the wall, trying to remember how to breathe around the pain in my chest.
She'd called me a monster. And the worst part was she was absolutely right.
Chapter Thirteen
ARIA
Heartbreak felt like drowning in slow motion. Every breath a little harder than the last, every moment stretching into an eternity of suffocating pain.
Except I wasn't sure if my heart was breaking because of what I'd seen Kai do, or because of what I'd said to him afterward.
Monster.
I'd called him a monster. Watched something die in his eyes. I watched him shut down, walk away, and promise to leave me alone.
And now I couldn't stop replaying it. The execution. The casual way he'd pulled the trigger. The absolute lack of hesitation. The blood pooling dark and final beneath a body that had been alive seconds before.
I should be terrified. Should be running. Should be doing anything except standing in the conservatory at ten in the morning, mindlessly arranging roses in a crystal vase while my thoughts spiraled.
My hands moved automatically. Trim the stem. Strip the thorns. Place it in the arrangement. Repeat.
I'd always thought people who killed were completely bad. Blackand white. No gray area. You either had that capacity for violence or you didn't. And if you did, you were irredeemable.
But Kai complicated everything.
Because the same hands that had pulled that trigger were the hands that held me when I cried. The same man who'd executed someone without blinking was the man who'd promised to protect me. To save me.
Was I making excuses because it was him? Was I so far gone that I was refusing to see what was glaringly obvious? That he was exactly what I'd called him?
My feelings were clouding my judgment. Had to be. No rational person would look at what I'd witnessed and think anything other than 'run.'
But I wasn't running. I was arranging flowers and trying to reconcile two versions of the same person that shouldn't be able to exist together.
"You're going to decapitate that rose if you're not careful."
I jumped, nearly dropping the pruning shears. Lia stood in the doorway, arms crossed, watching me with those sharp eyes that missed nothing.
"Sorry. I didn't hear you come in."
"Clearly. You've been mutilating that same stem for like five minutes." She moved closer, took the shears from my hand gently. "Want to talk about whatever's eating at you, or should I just watch you commit botanical murder?"
I hesitated. Lia had been straight with me from day one. Honest when she could have lied. Warned me when she could have stayed silent.
"Are you scared of your brother?"
