"You're thinking loud enough to hear across the room," he says.
"Just wondering about something."
"About what?"
I pull my knees up to my chest, making myself smaller in the chair. This question has been sitting in my throat for days, eversince the safehouse, ever since he told me about his father. I've been waiting for the right moment.
"Tell me about Dahlia."
He goes still.
The name hangs in the air between us. I've heard it before. Fragments. References. The ghost that haunts the edges of his history. But I've never asked directly, and he's never offered.
"Why?" he asks.
"Because she mattered to you. Because you say her name in your sleep sometimes, and then you wake up looking like someone carved a piece out of your chest. Because I want to know who she was, and what she meant, and why she left."
He's quiet. Then he crosses to the dresser, pulls out a pair of pants, drops the towel and pulls them on. Not rushed. Not defensive. buying time, I think. Gathering the pieces of a story he hasn't told in years.
He sits on the edge of the bed, facing me. His forearms rest on his knees, hands clasped between them. The posture of a man preparing to confess.
"Dahlia is Aurelio’s daughter. We were never meant to be. Forbidden. But we had secret meetings. I fell for her when she was clear I was nothing more than a warm body."
"And?"
"She became a runner in the Night Hunt. A barbaric ritual that Westpoint Academy held dear for centuries. A way to solidify their alliance with us as their protectors. She defied her family at every turn, fell for her captor and left.”
I blink. "She did?”
"She did. Almost killed me in her choice.”
"What happened?"
"It doesn’t matter. She’s happy with her choice. Slowly repairing things with her father.”
I'm quiet in contemplation. “Do you still love her?”
"No. I don’t still love Dahlia Bonaccorso. I love you. She is a woman who I cared for once, and who taught me that love was dangerous. A risk I wasn’t willing to make again.”
He sighs and looks at me, “Until now.”
"So you don’t still love her? Are you lying to me?" I ask.
He looks up. Meets my eyes.
"I don't know what I felt for her," he says. "I thought it was love. But looking back, I think it was more fear. Loneliness. Gratitude. She was the first person who made me feel human, and I held onto that so tight I convinced myself it was more than it was."
"And now?"
"Now I know the difference."
He stands. Crosses to my chair. Crouches in front of me so we're eye level, his hands resting on my knees.
"Dahlia saw the man I was pretending to be," he says. "The version I constructed for her. Softer. Safer. Someone she could love without needing to water herself down."
"And me?"
"You see everything." His hands slide up my thighs, grip my hips, pull me to the edge of the chair. "The violence. The darkness. The parts I kept hidden from her because I thought they'd drive her away. You've seen me kill. You've seen me break. You've seen the worst of what I am, and you're still here."
