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He stalks toward me, jaw tight, energy crackling off him like lightning on metal. “You could’ve been followed. You compromised the entire op. Do you have any idea what?—”
“No,” I interrupt. “Because you won’t tell me.”
He stops. Chest heaving. Eyes narrowed.
“You’re… scared. Why?”
A muscle ticks in his jaw. “Stop. Right now.”
“No. Why are you so scared?” I whisper. “Why does me going home terrify you?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he growls.
“You track my every move. Collar me. Deny me release, deny me answers. You fuck me like I’m your possession and then panic the second I breathe on my own.”
His nostrils flare.
I step closer, place a hand on his chest. “You’re not just angry, Dante. You’re afraid. I saw it the second you walked in.”
He turns his back to me, but I see his shoulders tense. His hand curls into a fist on the desk.
“I went to my apartment,” I continue quietly. “I logged in. I checked old messages. Talked to my dad. That’s all. Just… trying to remind myself who I was before all this.”
Silence.
“I was always going to test the bonds of the chains and the collars. We both know that.”
Cold. Heavy. Silence. Eerie and deep.
“I didn’t mean to break your trust,” I say, and it’s not a lie. Not entirely. “But you don’t trust me either.”
His silence hurts more than his anger. So I change the subject—no, Iweaponizemy pain. My vulnerability. A dagger to his firewalls.
His head shifts, barely, like he’s listening. Intently.
“After my mother died,” I say, “my father couldn’t look me in the eye for six months. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, because of me. And it tore us apart.”
I swallow hard, the memory bitter in my throat.
“He never said it out loud, but I felt it. Every day. Like his silence was a verdict I couldn’t escape. I stopped coming home after classes. Started staying out late just so I didn’t have to see the disappointment in his face. I think... I think part of him wished I’d died instead of her.”
The words hang between us, heavy and raw.
“I tried to be better after that. Smarter. Tougher. But the damage was done. We both wore our grief like armor, but mine cut deeper. Because I knew the truth—if she hadn’t been picking me up that night, if I hadn’t forgotten my phone—she’d still be alive.
“I know what loss feels like, Dante,” I whisper. “That gaping black hole you build your whole life around. And the secrets you’d kill to protect it.” I walk to him, place a hand on his back.
“I know you’re hiding something. Ironveil. Specter.You pretend to be angry when I overstep but hold me like I’m precious. Even as you look at me like I’m a goddamn ghost.”
His shoulders shake. Once.
But he doesn’t turn.
“You said you’d been watching me for a long time. That you want my surrender. You want my obedience? You can have all of it, Dante. All I ask in return is that you give me truth.”
Dante
She’s too smart.