“So,” she says, casual as a dagger up the sleeve, “how many skeletons would I find in your closet if I started pulling records from your early days?”
I smirk. “Depends. Are we talking literal or metaphorical skeletons?”
She rolls her eyes, but I see the curve of her lip twitch up. Just a little. It counts.
We’re tucked in a private alcove now, two seats angled toward each other, low lighting and velvet-drenched silence turning every word between us into something heavier. Her knee almost brushes mine beneath the table. Almost. Neither of us moves it.
“I don’t keep records,” I say. “Hard to feel nostalgic when half your youth is a blur of blood and indoctrination.”
She studies me. “Reaper upbringing?”
“Something like that. The Ishani don't raise kids. They forge weapons.”
She quiets, eyes narrowing just a touch. “And yet you run a casino and wear tailored suits. Not exactly the vision of a battle-forged war-beast.”
“You saying I don’t scare you anymore?” I tease.
“I didn’t say that,” she mutters.
Her voice drops lower at the end, huskier. Gods, that tone. Makes something primal inside me sit up and beg.
“I remember pieces,” I go on. “Little flashes. Training pits that smelled like scorched bone. A voice screaming over klaxons. The taste of iron—always iron. They used to strip us of names. Made us wear black until we earned color. I bled for every stitch of silver on my sleeves.”
She leans in slightly, not realizing she’s doing it. I take a sip, let the fire roll down my throat before I go on.
“But I left. Or tried to. Killed my handler and fled. Built a name for myself with blood and casino chips.”
Aria’s brows pull together. Not judgment. Not revulsion. Just... something close to sadness. Pity, almost. I hate it.
“You ever want to go back?” she asks.
“To the Ishani?” I laugh, sharp and bitter. “Hell no. I’d rather drown in antimatter. But the instinct... that never leaves. You can dress it up, bury it under silk and syndicates, but the hunger’s still there.”
She nods, like she understands more than I expected. “I get that.”
“You?” I arch a brow. “Didn’t think control-freak prosecutors had dark sides.”
“Oh, we do,” she says, tone clipped. “We just file them under ‘classified.’”
There’s a pause, not quite comfortable, not quite tense. Just... charged. The way still water goes just before it starts to boil.
I set my glass down.
“You think we’re opposites,” I say quietly.
“Iknowwe are.”
I shake my head. “Nah. We’re both trying to win a war with our own nature. I want to tear the world apart for the ones I protect. You want to stitch it together with rules and order. Either way—someone bleeds.”
Her breath catches. Just for a second.
“You think you’re noble,” she says, voice barely above a whisper. “But all you’re doing is feeding the machine with cleaner hands.”
“And you think you’re pure,” I counter. “But you’re sitting here, drinking with the devil, knowing exactly how hot hell can get.”
We stare at each other across the divide of everything unsaid. And I swear, in that moment, if I reached out and touched her, the whole godsdamn city would catch fire.
The bottle between us breathes out the scent of crushed blackberries, smoked wood, and something deeper—older. Wine aged in grav-oak barrels on a backwater moon. Rare. Expensive. Like most beautiful, dangerous things.
