I don’t know what to do with that look. My chest aches with it.
As they drag him away, I turn on Lonari, voice shaking with fury and something worse—confusion.
“You’re a monster,” I say.
Lonari’s mouth twitches slightly, not quite a smile. “Yeah.”
“That’s not—” I struggle, searching for words that don’t sound naive. “You can’t just decide who deserves pain and call it morality.”
He steps closer, and now he’s close enough that his shadow covers me, his presence pressing into my personal space without touching.
“I don’t call it morality,” he says quietly. “I call it a line.”
“A line,” I repeat bitterly.
He nods once. “There are people who hurt others because they can. They build little empires on the backs of the weak. If nobody stops them, they keep going until there’s nothing left to take.”
His gaze holds mine.
“I stop them,” he says.
My throat tightens.
I want to hate him. I do hate what he is. I hate the power. I hate the casual violence. I hate that the IHC would call him a criminal and stamp it on paper and feel righteous.
But I also can’t ignore what I just heard: “skimming from the girls.”
Predator.
Parasite.
Lonari isn’t pretending he’s good.
He’s pretending he’s necessary.
And that’s somehow worse… and somehow more honest.
I swallow, voice quieter. “So you’re the hero of Gur.”
Lonari’s laugh is low, brief, humorless. “No. Gur doesn’t get heroes.”
“Then what are you?” I ask, genuinely, because my blanket resentment of Coalition species and criminals and syndicates suddenly feels too simple to hold.
Lonari’s eyes soften by a fraction—just enough to be noticeable.
“I’m the thing that makes other monsters flinch,” he says.
The words settle into my gut like a stone.
I look away first, staring down the corridor where the enforcers vanished, where the music from the casino floor drifts up like nothing happened.
When I look back, my voice is hoarse. “I tried to contact the IHC.”
Lonari’s gaze sharpens. “And?”
“They cared more about where I am than what I have,” I say, anger resurfacing. “They started talking about containment teams.”
Lonari’s jaw tightens. “Told you.”
