The dismissal in that—so smooth, so effortless—snapped something inside me.
“Zara is dead.”
The words left my mouth before I could stop them.
He paused mid-step.
For a moment, he didn’t move at all. Then, slowly, he turned back to face me.
“Yes,” he said. “I know she’s dead.”
Something in his tone made my frustration spike.
“No,” I shot back, shaking my head, my voice rising despite myself. “You don’t seem to know that she is dead—dead dead.”
The room felt tighter now, the air heavier, but I couldn’t stop.
“Even if you spend a whole year at her grave, she will never hear you,” I continued, the words tumbling out faster, fueled by something I didn’t fully understand—anger, maybe... or concern twisted into something sharper. “Whatever you think you’re saying to her—it’s only air.”
His expression didn’t change.
But something in his eyes did.
I pushed on anyway.
“I know it’s hard to move on after losing someone you...” I hesitated, the word ‘love’ catching in my throat. It wasn’t love. “...someone you cared about,” I corrected softly. “But you can’t keep living like this.”
“Like how?” he asked finally.
His voice had dropped—no longer casual.
It was colder now. The kind of tone that didn’t need volume to carry threat.
I swallowed, but held my ground.
“I understand honoring her memory,” I said, forcing my voice to steady even as my heart pounded against my ribs. “But disappearing for days, sitting at her grave, thinking it will numb your pain... thinking it will stop the nightmares—”
I took a small breath, my hands curling slightly at my sides.
“That needs to stop.”
The shift in him was instant.
One moment, Rafael stood across the room, distance and control wrapped around him like armor.
The next—
He moved.
So fast my mind barely registered it.
My pulse spiked violently, every nerve in my body snapping to attention as his face came dangerously close to mine.
Up this close, there was no space for illusion, no distance to soften him.
His eyes burned into mine.
Dark. Furious. Controlled only by the thinnest thread.
