My sheets are tangled, sweat-damp, and cling to my legs like a second skin. I shove them off, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes until stars spark behind my lids.
Not until you ask.
Precursors damn him.
The words won’t stop looping. Not even when I scrub my skin raw in the sonic shower. Not when I dress in my most no-nonsense blazer and high-necked blouse. Not even when I fill my mouth with the bitterest kaf in the cabinet—burnt and black and barely drinkable.
He didn’t kiss me.
That’s what infuriates me the most.
Hecould have. I would’ve let him. I don’t know what that says about me—what kind of woman stands on the edge of acrime lord’s mouth and aches for the fall—but I would’ve taken the plunge. Just to know how it felt. Just to see if I’d survive it.
But he didn’t.
Not until you ask.
It’s not a refusal. It’s an invitation. A slow, smoldering dare.
And I hate him for it.
I throw myself into work with the desperation of a drowning woman. My office feels too warm, too close. The window’s too clean, showing me every smear of my own reflection, like a ghost watching her own undoing.
I queue up the witness recordings. Dive into sealed transcripts and cross-reference the Nar’Vosk timeline with what we now know. There’s enough data to bury them. Enough to tie a bow around a century of blood and call it justice.
But my hands shake as I type. My fingers slip on the screen. And every few minutes, my gaze drifts to the corner of my desk where the glass he poured for me still sits—half-drunk, forgotten.
I didn’t pour it out.
Gods, I should’ve poured it out.
“Dawson?”
I jump. It’s my assistant—Kyla—poking her head in with a datapad and a look that says she’s already walked in on one too many awkward silences.
“Yeah,” I croak. “Come in.”
She eyes me. “Rough night?”
“You could say that.”
She sets the pad down, and as she leaves, I catch her smirk in the reflection.
They all think they know. That I’ve finally fallen for the devil I spent half my career chasing. Maybe I have. Maybe I’m too far gone to tell the difference between being burned and being warmed.
My comm chimes. New file. No sender.
I open it.
It’s a security vid—grainy but clear. Aebon, last night, walking the Virelli Club corridor alone after I left. He stops under a light, stares at nothing for a long moment.
Then he says, “Soon,” like a prayer. Like a promise.
My hand clamps over my mouth. I don’t know if I want to scream or laugh or sob.
Not until you ask.
I’m not asking.
