I sit.
Confused. Off-balance. Trying to figure out what game he’s playing now, what shift this represents in the careful architecture of my captivity.
The silence stretches.
I won’t look at him. Won’t give him the satisfaction.
“Are you going to sulk all evening?”
“I’m not sulking. I’m ignoring you.”
“What’s the difference?”
My jaw clenches. “You cornered me. Grabbed me. Pointed out—” I can’t finish the sentence. Can’t saymy nipples were hard, and you sawout loud.
He leans forward, candlelight catching the sharp angles of his face.
“I told you the truth. That’s what you’re angry about.” His voice is low. Certain. “Not what I did. What I said.”
“You’re insane.”
“No.” His dark eyes hold mine. “I’m paying attention.”
The words land somewhere soft and unprotected. I look away first.
“The Madonna.” I don’t know why I’m asking. Don’t know why it matters. “Why do you have her? Why do you keep staring at her?”
He goes still.
“You want me to stop ignoring you?” I press. “Talk. Tell me something real.”
For a long moment, I don’t think he’ll answer. His jaw works as his hands flatten against the tablecloth.
“My mother loved art.” The words come slowly, reluctantly, like he’s dragging them up from somewhere deep and guarded. “Madonnas especially. She said they understood something most people don’t—how to hold grief with grace.” His voice goes distant. Eyes unfocused, staring at something I can’t see. “She was the only person who ever showed me love.”
My chest aches despite myself.
Don’t humanize him. Don’t do this to yourself.
“But even that wasn’t real.” His voice flattens. Goes cold in a way that makes me want to reach across the table, which is insane, which is dangerous, which is exactly what he wants. “Just biology. Evolutionary programming. Mothers protect offspring because it ensures genetic survival. What I thought was love was just mammalian instinct.” He meets my eyes. Dark.Endless. “There’s no such thing as love, Violet. Just need dressed up in poetry.”
“The saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
I stare at him. This man who doesn’t believe in the thing his mother gave him. This cracked, beautiful monster who built walls so high he trapped himself inside them.
“Sad or not,” he says, “it’s true.”
“What happened to her?”
A long pause stretches out, heavy and thick. His hands curl slowly into fists on the tablecloth. I watch the knuckles go white, the fabric bunching under his grip, and I feel my own breath catch somewhere high in my throat. When he speaks, his voice is stripped bare.
“My father.”
I wait.
“He had it done. Made it look like an accident.” Each word costs him something. “I was twelve when I found her body.”
Jesus Christ.
