"You're good at that."
"I've had practice."
"Not just the cooking. Everything we’ve been doing so far." I choose my next words carefully. "You said you were responsible for people dying. But from what I've seen, you're also responsible for keeping people alive. Your team. Whoever you've protected through Guardian Peak. Me."
He stops cutting but doesn't look up. "What's your point?"
"My point is that maybe you're not the failure you think you are. Maybe one terrible night doesn't erase everything else you've done."
"You've known me five days. You don't know what I've done."
"Then tell me. Tell me something that makes you the monster you clearly think you are."
He sets down the knife and finally meets my eyes. What I see there makes my chest ache.
"After the ambush, after we got the survivors out, I went back. Alone. Found one of the insurgents who set the trap hiding in a building three blocks away." His voice is flat, emotionless. "I spent two hours with him before he told me everything I wanted to know. By the end, he was begging me to kill him."
My stomach turns, but I don't look away. "Did you?"
"No. I left him for the local authorities. Last I heard, he's still in a detention facility somewhere." He picks up the knife again, resuming his chopping with slightly more force than before. "That's who I am, Vivian. That's what I'm capable of. Still think I'm not a monster?"
"I think you're a man who watched his people die and wanted answers. I think you did something terrible because you were in terrible pain." I push off the counter and move closer, closeenough to touch if I dared. "I don't condone torture. But I also don't think one act defines an entire person."
"You're very forgiving for someone in your profession."
"I'm very good at seeing context. Nuance. The gray areas between black and white." I reach out and put my hand over his, stilling the knife. "You told me that story to push me away. To make me afraid of you. But I prosecute monsters, Deck. I know what they look like. And you're not one."
He stares at our hands, mine small and soft over his large and scarred. When he speaks, his voice is barely above a whisper.
"You should be afraid of me."
"Probably, but I'm not." I squeeze his hand once, then force myself to let go. "Now finish making dinner. I'm starving and emotional conversations make me hungry."
His expression shifts. Not quite a smile, but close. The tension in his shoulders eases slightly.
"You're impossible."
"I'm a prosecutor. Impossible is in the job description."
He shakes his head but returns to cooking. I retreat to the couch with a book I won't actually read. There is still a crackling between us, but it's different now. Less like a bomb about to detonate and more like something slowly warming.
After dinner, we sit on opposite ends of the couch reviewing security protocols. His thigh is inches from mine. If I shifted slightly, we'd be touching.
I don't shift. Neither does he.
But when our eyes meet over the emergency evacuation maps, something passes between us that feels like a promise. Or a warning.
Maybe both.
"You should get some sleep." He stands abruptly, gathering the papers. "Tomorrow's training is going to be intense."
"More intense than today?"
"We're doing a full scenario drill. Simulated breach. I want to see how you perform under pressure."
"Sounds fun." I stand too, and we're suddenly very close in the narrow space between couch and coffee table. "What time should I be ready?"
"Oh-five-hundred. Earlier than usual."
