“Yes.”
The certainty in his voice hits me in a way that makes my pulse jump. I ignore it.
“So your rules are: I stay here, I don’t leave, and I don’t talk to anyone but you or your men?” I ask. “Sounds less like protection and more like isolation.”
“Isolation is a form of protection,” he says calmly.
“Spoken like a man who’s never taken a psychology class.”
He gives me a look that’s all sharp edges and faint amusement. “You think you can diagnose me?”
“I think you’re textbook control-oriented with probable attachment avoidance and—”
He steps closer, cutting the distance between us in half. “Careful,” he says softly. “You’re very close to turning your analysis into provocation.”
My breath catches. My heart kicks against my ribs, but I keep my expression cool. “Maybe I’m just bored.”
“I don’t bore easily,” he replies. “You’re not boring.”
His gaze lingers, heavy and intent, before he finally steps back. The space he leaves behind feels charged, buzzing under my skin like static.
Our conversations turn into a kind of mental sparring.
At first, I’m sure I’m going to lose. He’s older, more experienced, terrifyingly intelligent in the way he sees through people. But I know how to pick apart patterns. I know how to push at weak points.
“You say everything you do is necessary,” I tell him one evening as we sit at the table. “But that’s not true.”
His eyes flick from his drink to me. “Isn’t it?”
“Killing a man in an alley and covering it up as suicide? Maybe necessary in your world. Grabbing me off the street instead of just… warning me?” I lift a shoulder. “That feels like a very specific choice.”
“Warning you wouldn’t have worked,” he says.
“You didn’t try.”
His jaw ticks once. “You underestimate how bad people are at listening.”
“You underestimate my ability to decide for myself.”
He leans forward, forearms resting on the table. The angle brings his face closer to mine, and suddenly the distance between us feels microscopic. I don’t lean back. I refuse to.
“Decide then,” he says quietly. “If I’d told you to stay away, would you have stopped looking into the alley? Into me? Into my family?”
Heat crawls up my neck because we both know the answer. “I don’t like being told what to do.”
“Exactly.”
The tension spikes. His gaze drops briefly to my mouth before returning to my eyes. My heart slams so hard I’m sure he can hear it.
For a moment, our faces are close enough that if either of us moved an inch—
I break eye contact first, looking down at my notebook. “You can’t know that for sure,” I say, voice a touch too thin.
“Eden,” he murmurs, “I’ve built an empire on understanding what people will do before they do it.”
I hate that it thrills me. I hate that it scares me even more.
He sits back eventually, but the air doesn’t clear. The small space he leaves between us crackles, and every time my hand brushes the table near where his just was, my skin remembers the heat of his proximity.
