I say the piece that matters. “Because when I want something,” I tell her quietly, “I don’t want it halfway.”
Her breath catches. Her eyes flicker, heat and uncertainty tangling together.
“And I’m… something you only want halfway?” she asks, voice breaking just slightly.
“No.” I step closer before I can stop myself. “You’re something I shouldn’t want at all.”
She flinches like I’ve struck her.
“Shouldn’t?” she repeats, sharper now, emotion rising. “Khai, don’t do that. Don’t make me feel like I’m a mistake you’re trying to erase.”
“You’re not a mistake,” I snap, and the edge in my voice surprises both of us. I force it down. “You’re… a risk.”
“A risk to what?” she challenges. “To your control? Your reputation? Your ego?”
I laugh once, humourless. “To your life staying quiet.”
She stills. That gets her attention.
“I don’t live in a world where people leave things alone,” I say, words low and deliberate. “Where they see something precious and decide to respect it.”
Her chin lifts, stubborn returning. “You keep saying ‘world.’ What does that mean? What are you not telling me?”
The question is steady, but I can hear the tremor underneath it.
I take a breath. “The moment you matter to me,” I say slowly, “you stop being invisible.”
Her eyes widen. “Invisible to who?”
I hold her gaze, and for the first time tonight, I let the truth look like what it is,a warning and a confession in the same breath.
“To him.”
Silence floods the room. I see it then, the fear flicker behind her eyes. Not panic. Not hysteria. Just the reality settling in.
“And you think… he’d come for me?” she whispers.
I don’t dodge it.
“Yes.”
Her throat bobs. “Your father.”
I don’t say his name. I don’t need to. The shadow of him lives in the way I choose my words, in the way I don’t.
But Emmy, Emmy is too smart to let me hide behind vagueness.
“So, walking away was you trying to keep me out of it,” she says, piecing it together. “Trying to… protect me.”
“It was me trying not to put you in his line of sight,” I admit. And there it is, the crack. The sliver of fear I can’t fully bury. “Because I know what happens when something becomes leverage.”
Her voice drops, shaken. “And you think I’ll become that.”
I swallow hard.
“I think the second I stop acting like you don’t matter,” I say, “he will notice that you do.”
She stares at me, breathing shallowly. Then, softer, almost wounded,
