The comments keep coming, soft, almost idle, but they coil around me like smoke, refusing to dissipate.
By the last night, the tension is thick enough to choke on. We sit at the old wooden table, dinner finished, whiskey in our glasses. The fire snaps behind us, painting Leon’s face in gold and shadow. He stands behind my chair, hands braced on the wood, close enough that I can feel the heat of his body at my back.
He doesn’t drink. He pours more whiskey for me, then lets the silence grow, stretching until I can barely breathe. When he speaks, his voice is soft, but there’s an edge I’ve never heard before: cold, precise, almost surgical.
“Tell me about your father,” he says. The words aren’t a request.
My hand tightens around the glass. “What about him?”
Leon leans in, his mouth close to my ear. “You haven’t called him in days,” he says. “Not since we left the city. That’s unusual for you.”
I try to laugh. “Maybe I needed a break. He worries too much.”
There’s a pause. The air feels heavy, expectant. “Does he?” Leon’s tone is mild, but something dark flickers beneath it. “He’s never struck me as the worrying type. More like the kind of man who uses what’s close to him.”
My pulse skitters. I keep my eyes on the table, tracing the wood grain with my thumb. “You don’t know him.”
“I know enough,” he says, the words low and even. “I know he’s always looking for an angle. I know you’re not as good at hiding things as you think.”
For a moment, I can’t breathe. The room tilts. I try to marshal a response—something clever, something dismissive—but my mind blanks. “Leon—”
He straightens, coming around to face me, his expression unreadable in the firelight. “Trust,” he says quietly, “is everything. Without it, there’s nothing worth saving. Nothing worth fighting for.”
The silence hums between us. I know then—know with a sick, sinking certainty—that he’s known all along.
Maybe not every detail, but enough. The trip, the kindness, the way he’s watched me these last few days—it was all a stage. An opportunity. A test I never had a chance of passing.
I look up, meet his eyes, and for a moment, neither of us speaks. The fire pops. The whiskey burns. I feel like I’m teetering on a knife’s edge, one step away from losing everything I never meant to want.
Panic slices through me so fast it’s almost physical, like a blade dragged clean through my chest.
My mind fractures into a thousand sharp pieces, each one replaying a moment I’ve tried not to think about—the drawer not quite closed, the quiet hum of cameras I couldn’t see, the weightof my phone in my pocket as I took those photos with shaking hands.
I see it all again, mercilessly clear. The question isn’t if he knows. It’s how long he’s known.
I push back from the table too quickly, chair legs screeching against the floor. The sound is loud in the cabin’s hush, a stupid, panicked noise that makes me feel even smaller. I need space. Air. Somewhere to put my fear.
The cabin feels suddenly tiny, the walls leaning in, the firelight throwing shadows that seem to move when I’m not looking.
Leon doesn’t move right away. He watches me with that unsettling stillness, his face half in shadow, mouth curved in a faint smile that holds no warmth at all. It’s not anger. It’s worse. It’s certainty.
“You thought I wouldn’t notice?” he says softly.
The words hit harder than a shout. They steal what little breath I have left. My body freezes, every instinct screaming at me to run, to deny, to say something—anything—but his eyes pin me in place. I’ve seen that look before, just not directed at me. It’s the look men get when the outcome is already decided.
My father’s voice rises in my head, uninvited and cruel. Warnings dressed up as lessons. Never lie to men like him unless you’re ready to die for it. Never betray someone who has nothing left to lose. I feel my pulse in my throat, fast and shallow, and suddenly I’m very aware of how alone we are out here. No guards. No witnesses. No one to hear me scream if this goes wrong.
Leon steps closer, not touching me, but near enough that I can feel the heat of him, the solid reality of his presence. My skin prickles with dread.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” he murmurs, almost kindly. Then, after a pause that makes my stomach drop, “Not yet.”
The room tilts. I swallow hard, my hands curling into fists at my sides. Every part of me wants to beg, to tell him it wasn’t what he thinks, that I didn’t mean to hurt him.
The truth is too ugly, too tangled. I don’t even know where I’d start.
He speaks calmly, like this is a business conversation, like he isn’t dismantling me piece by piece.
“I’m not going to kill you,” he says. “That would be pointless.” His gaze never leaves my face, sharp and assessing. “Trust is the foundation of everything. Marriage. Business. Life. Without it, there’s nothing worth keeping.”
