“A bargain?” I whisper. “What kind of bargain involves almost dying?”
He turns away, rubbing the back of his neck—silver-trimmed collar bending under the motion. For a moment, I almost pity him. Instead, I press closer.
“Tell me,” I say.
He stops pacing. Breathing falters.
“I lead the Centauri Sect,” he says, voice distant, as if he’s half in another world. “That isn’t just a title or a position. It’s a fucking burden. Every life that dies in my wars—someone, somewhere, blamesme. Not the Nar’Vosk. Not the other factions. I do.”
He steps forward, eyes raw.
“Every time I walk away from a bar fight, a heist, a skirmish… someone under me asked why I didn’t help them when they came for blood. Because vengeance is the only answer for the hurt people. I know that. But if all I ever give them is vengeance—then it’s the same old cycle. I tried something else. Something better.”
My chest tightens. I see him now—not the predator in silk, but the man trying to rewrite the narrative of who he is. Trying to protect more than his people. Trying to give them—give me—something approaching peace.
“I wanted to give them stability,” he continues, voice wet with memory. “Not fear. I wanted to turn the Sect into more than muscle for hire—to make it a force that actually helps this city. Schools. Clinics. Jobs. Normal shit, Aria.”
His eyes meet mine. “I did it all because I thought… maybe you’d see I’m not just a butcher in a suit.”
A silence rolls between us—thick and full. The rain’s tap-softens now.
I swallow. Push propped pillow tighter.
“You sound like you really believed in that,” I say. My voice quavers—brittle from emotion, from admitting what the words cost me.
He nods, off balance. “I did.”
The shame in his posture breaks something in me open.
“I… believed it too,” I whisper, breath catching. “I believed the informant was more than a gift from the underground. That it meant you were trying. That you were changing.”
He steps closer, hesitates. “I am.”
“You had to bend the rules,” I say, voice low. “Youlied. Youmanipulated.”
His lips form a slow line. “Yes.”
My pulse rattles.
“Because you thought it was worth it,” I say slowly. “Because you thought what we could… could be worth that.”
He doesn’t respond. Instead, he moves so close I can feel the heat spilling from his ribs, the steady drum of his heart against my palm.
So I place my hand there. Against his chest, over his heart.
And I hear him inhale.
We hold the moment.
I close my eyes.
Finally, I speak, voice trembling but deliberate: “I… I can’t keep pretending I don’t care if you live or die.”
He inhales again—soft, unsteady.
I open my eyes. He looks broken as thunder, but tender.
“Gods,” he murmurs. “That terrifies me.”
