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Of all the ways I expected tonight to play out, showing up to this early—whateverthisis—wasn’t part of the plan.

I glance up at the front of Greymoor Manor from across the quiet, tree-lined Manhattan street.

HowdidI expect tonight to go? Why am I even here? The easy answer would be to say because he threatened me.

I’ll fucking find you anyway.

But that's a flimsy, shitty excuse.

I’m a fuckingKalishnik. I have multiple bodyguards and live in a house with tighter security than most royal palaces.

…Granted, that means fuck-all in this debate, considering Nero already slipped into my house to doanything he wantedto me while I slept.

A low, achy throb tightens in my core. I chase it away.

If I was really worried about Nero “coming after me” or “finding me”, I could request a twenty-four-hour armed guard, or tell my father about Nero's little visit. That would result in a top-to-bottom overhaul of our entire security system, probably our whole organization, by the next day.

But I haven’t told Papa.

I haven’t told anyone. And not because I’mscaredof Nero.

Maybe because I’m scared of how easily he slips through my defenses. Not Papa's guards and security systems, but myownmental defenses and walls.

Which brings me back to my original question: why thehellam I back here for this thing with Nero, at the demand of a man who chased me through this house in the dark, broke into my room, put his hands andmouthon me, and then did it again last night in the ladies' room at Doomsday?

Because you want to be.

It’s a sick truth: I’m here because a dark, fucked-up part of me iscurious.

The other night, he invited me to look over an edge I’ve stayed away from foryears. The first problem is that I did.

The second one is thatI liked what I saw.

I shiver and wrap my arms around myself.

The night air is colder than usual for this time of year, but perhaps it’s just me. My body’s running hot, my skin electrified. Every nerve feels lit up, buzzing.Waiting.

Nerowillthink I’m here because of his threats. He’ll think I’m scared…and maybe I am, a little. But it’s not just the allure of him letting me taste that dark fantasy.

It’s thatI know how well he cangive methat taste.

Because he did so once before, when he gave me a private, guided tour of the sort of darkness I’d only fantasized about. A glimpse of sweet madness.

I’m almostcertainthat he's the one I used to write to. The boy behind the letters who told me his nightmares and asked about mine. Who confessed the worst parts of himself—dark, dangerous, things no one else would understand.Trustedme with them.

It wasn’t just the rush of talking to a stranger about my sick fantasies and having him tell me theyweren’tsick, that I wasn't alone in having them. I didn’t just crave the darkness he could pull from me.

I cravedhim—at least, the version of him I used to know. I craved the way he made me feel seen.

Was it love? Or was I just young and stupid and lonely enough to fall for a voice on a page? I don’t know. It’s a question I’ve asked myself for four years.

I don’t even know if Iwantto know at this point. Because that was four years ago, and I’m so different from that young, naive girl that I don’t even know if she’d recognize the me I’ve become.

And him? If thatwasNero I wrote to and then gave myself to four years ago, who thehellis the man he’s become?

The Nero I knew—again, if itwasNero—was sharp, with a darkness you couldn’t ignore. A thoughtful kind of darkness,though. Quiet. Haunted in a way that made you want to get closer instead of…well…run.

Nero De Luca today is cold, and brutal, and untouchable. He leads his empire with ice in his veins and blood on his hands.