I stepped into the room.
Nathan was standing over Gabriel's body, his weapon still drawn, his expression a mask of cold satisfaction that flickered into surprise when he saw me. He hadn't expected me to be here. He'd told me to wait in the car, to stay safe, to let him handle the confrontation alone. He still thought I was his obedient fiancée, his grateful rescue, his perfect little rabbit who'd never dream of disobeying him.
"Bunny." His voice was rough with adrenaline, but I could hear the relief underneath. "You shouldn't be here. It's not safe."
"I heard a gunshot." I let my voice tremble, let my eyes go wide and frightened. "I was so worried—I couldn't just sit in the car—"
"It's okay." He holstered his weapon and crossed the room to me, his hands finding my shoulders, his eyes searching my face. "It's over. He attacked me. I had no choice."
"Self-defense," I whispered, letting the word hang between us. "You were defending yourself."
"Yes." His grip on my shoulders tightened. "He lunged at me. Tried to kill me. I had to stop him."
I looked past him at Gabriel's body, crumpled on the concrete floor, his blood spreading in a dark pool around him. The charcoal suit was ruined. The white shirt wascrimson. His face was pale, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling with shallow, ragged breaths.
He was still alive.
"He's not dead," I said.
Nathan turned, his expression flickering with something between surprise and cold calculation. "He will be soon. The bullet hit his lung. He's drowning in his own blood."
"We should call an ambulance."
"No." His voice was sharp. "No ambulance. No police. This ends tonight, the way it should have ended years ago." He cupped my face, forcing me to meet his eyes. "He was going to take you away from me. Going to destroy everything we've built. I couldn't let that happen."
"I know." I let tears well in my eyes—real tears, because the grief was real, even if the performance was calculated. "I know you were protecting us."
"I was protectingyou." His thumb traced my cheekbone, wiping away a tear. "Everything I've done, everything I've ever done, was to protect you."
The words should have been romantic. Instead, they made me think of the pills in my medicine cabinet. The files on his laptop. The retrieval protocol that had reduced my life to a line item in a ledger. He'd protected me the way a collector protects a painting—by locking it away, by controlling its environment, by ensuring it could never escape the frame he'd built around it.
"Let me say goodbye," I whispered. "Please. I know he was a monster, but he was also... he was also the man who made me. I need to say goodbye."
Nathan hesitated. I watched him weigh the risks—the possibility that Gabriel might still be dangerous, the chance that I might see something I shouldn't. But he'd spent months believing I was his broken doll, his fragile rescue, his fiancée who needed him to survive. He couldn't imagine I might be anything else.
"Make it quick," he said finally. "Then we leave."
I nodded and crossed the room to where Gabriel lay dying.
The blood was warm against my knees as I knelt beside him.
My white dress soaked it up like a sponge, the crimson spreading through the cotton in patterns that would never wash out. I didn't care. The dress was a costume, a prop, a piece of the performance I'd been giving for months. Let it be stained. Let it be ruined. Let it bear witness to what had happened here.
Gabriel's eyes fluttered open when I touched his face.
"Bunny." His voice was barely a whisper, wet with blood and the effort of breathing. "My perfect girl."
"Don't talk." I stroked his hair the way he'd stroked mine during our sessions—gentle, reverent, the touch ofsomeone who understood that even monsters could be tender. "Just breathe. Just stay with me."
"Can't." A bubble of blood formed on his lips and burst. "Lung's collapsing. Internal bleeding. I have... minutes. Maybe less."
"Then I'll stay with you. Until the end."
Something flickered in his eyes—not hope, exactly, but its ghost. "You shouldn't. I don't deserve—"
"I know what you deserve." I kept stroking his hair, my fingers tracing the silver at his temples, the lines that grief and guilt had carved into his face. "I know what you did. I know what you are. But I also know what you gave me. The strength. The survival skills. The ability to recognize manipulation even when it's wrapped in love."
"Nathan—"
