Chapter 16
Silence settled between us like an uninvited guest. He poured water, not wine. Just water. That alone nearly made me suspicious. “You said no tricks,” I reminded him.
“There aren’t any.” He pushed a glass toward me. “I meant it. Just dinner.”
I glanced toward the guards. Two of them within view, watching, but not listening. The food came, I picked at it, but with no appetite, no trust.
“You haven’t eaten for almost an entire week,” he said quietly.
I set down the fork. “And whose fault is that?” He didn’t flinch. Just looked down at his plate like it had personally disappointed him.
“Mine,” he said. No excuse. Just that.
I blinked. “You’re really trying the whole accountability thing now?”
“Yes, I know I did it. But it was your fault.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “You lied to me, tried to escape, again. You pushed my trust and patience to the edge. If you had just obeyed me, none of it would’ve happened.”
“But still, how could you hurt your mate like that?” My voice cracked. “If this fucking bond was true, I’m sure you feel it. The pain I’ve felt because of you.”
“Okay. Fine. It’s my fault now. I’m taking you to dinner, aren’t I? Is this not enough?”
I looked at him. Well, not actually at him, more like… into him. His face was tired, shadows under his eyes, his collarbone was too sharp beneath his shirt. He looked worn down. Like he’d been unraveling thread by thread and didn’t know how to sew himself back together.
“This isn’t you trying to win me over?” I asked.
“Think what you think about this. I don’t care.” He shook his head slowly. “Just eat and don’t try to run again. Don’t test my patience,” he sighed.
Huh. Interesting reaction. Does he even know how to apologize? Jerk.
As I sat across from Pierce under the soft hum of rooftop lights, with jazz curling through the air and the city glowing like a promise we weren’t allowed to make, I realized something: I didn’t know what surprised me more, how easily he talked… or how badly I wanted to listen.
I should’ve kept my guard up, I should’ve stayed angry, but the way he looked tonight—tired, worn-down, like someone dragging every piece of himself to the surface just to be seen—it cracked something in me.
“I built it from scratch,” Pierce said, slicing into his steak like this was just some weird, high-stakes dinner date and not emotional triage. “Started with underground fights, bare-knuckle stuff. I was good at bleeding.”
He smirked faintly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Then came smuggling, weapons. All calculated and controlled.”
“Controlled?” I tilted my head, unimpressed. “That’s what we’re calling it now?”
He didn’t blink. “That’s my line. And I don’t let anyone in who crosses it.”
My brow arched. “Wow~ A moral arms dealer. Hallmark really missed the mark on your character.”
He laughed under his breath. “I didn’t say I was noble. I said I was disciplined.”
“Why weapons, then?” I leaned back in my chair, the frame cool against my bare spine. “Of all things?”
“Because control is currency.” He shrugged, his fork pausing mid-air. “Everyone wants protection, Lyra. But no one wants to admit the price. I just make sure I get paid first.”
I stared at him. He was so calm. So… settled in the way he told it, like he’d done the math years ago and made peace with the sum.
“And the people on the other end?” I asked quietly. “The ones at the barrel?”
“I vet every buyer.” He didn’t flinch. “No terrorists, no militias. No regimes that kill civilians. If I even hear a whisper of that, the deal’s off.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
He nodded. “Didn’t say it did.” And somehow… that made it worse.
Because he wasn’t justifying himself, he wasn’t trying to twist my sympathy out of me. He was just telling the truth, raw and flawed and unapologetic.
“I don’t expect you to understand,” he added, voice low. “Just know I’m not out here burning the world for fun. There are worse men. I make sure they stay worse than me.”
I looked away, blinking hard against the burn behind my eyes. The lights of the city blurred a little.
I wasn’t crying, not really. But something inside me was starting to unravel. Maybe it was the honesty. Maybe it was the way he wasn’t trying to manipulate me with it.
Or maybe it was that terrifying part of me that… wanted to understand him.
“My parents were fighting the ‘worse men’ all the time,” I said, voice low. “Angela and Edward Ashen. Politicians. Activists. The kind that pissed off powerful people with clean suits and dirty secrets.”
Pierce’s eyes snapped to mine. He didn’t interrupt. Just waited for me to continue, to finally reveal my insides to him.
“They were supposed to expose something big. Government-level corruption, corporate bribes, maybe both. They’d been gathering proof for months. Then, one night… they just didn’t come home.”
I paused. Swallowed hard and then continued, “Brake failure, they said. Speed, instant impact. Two bodies in a burned-out shell of a car. The official story was an accident, but I knew better. I was twelve, and I still knew better.”
Pierce didn’t say anything, kept listening.
“They never got to release what they found. Someone made sure of that. Wiped their files, ruined their names. I got bounced around in the system like I was nothing, but I kept digging. I found pieces, just enough to know it wasn’t random. It was silencing.”
He leaned in, slow and measured, studying me with that unnerving intensity that always made it feel like he could see through the armor I didn’t know I was wearing.
My fingers clenched in my lap before I swept my gaze back to his. “That’s why I started all of this. Why I got into journalism. Why I danced in that club. I wasn’t just chasing some minor story, I was chasing a jackal that took my parents from me.”
“You carry them in you, I can see that,” he said quietly. “That heat. That edge.” His lips curved slightly, just enough to make it dangerous. “If you got your fire at least half from your parents… I’d bet they scared the shit out of ‘worse men’ more than I.”
Despite myself, I smiled—small, involuntary, but real. His eyes dropped immediately to my mouth, locking on like he’d been waiting to see it. And when he looked back up, something in his expression had changed—just enough to send a flicker of heat down my spine.
“I don’t want to take that fire from you,” he said, voice lower now, softer. “Don’t want to see you breaking. Not like that.”
“Then stop trying,” I said. It came out more like a whisper than I meant it to.
“Then stop escaping. Cut pissing me off.” It sounds so calm. Like it’s not controlling, more like negotiating.
His gaze didn’t move. Not from my eyes. Not from my lips. Like he was holding something back.
Something between us shifted—not with drama or fanfare, but in the quiet. A beat of stillness that didn’t hurt.
“I can do better,” he exhaled. “If it means you’ll stop trying to walk away or disappear. I’m not asking for forgiveness and I’m not going to fall on my knees for something I can’t undo. But I’ll give you space. I’ll listen, I’ll stop pushing where I shouldn’t have. I’ll back off when you need air.”
I stared at him, wary.
“You don’t have to trust me now,” he said steady. “But if you ever decide I’m worth it… I’ll be there. All I’m asking is that you start letting me in. Even a little.”
He paused, voice softer now. “Not that hard… right?”
It was. Of course it was.
I studied him. Not the version I’d built up in my head, the monster, the captor, the threat, but the man who looked like he was slowly realizing just how much damage he’d caused.
“And the punishments?” I asked. “All the control and dominating kink?”
“They stop,” he exhaled, his jaw tense before he put this wicked smile again on his lips. “Unless you ever ask for them, of course. Never without you saying ‘yes’.”
That caught me off guard. Not because I didn’t think he could say it, but because… he meant it.
This wasn’t a tactic, this wasn’t power play. It was something messier. I blinked slowly. My throat felt tight. “I’m not saying I forgive you.”
“I know.”
“And I’m not ready to forget what you did.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to.”
I looked at him, really looked, and saw it. The shift. Not redemption, not even close. But remorse. And that was new. That was everything.
“I’m just saying… I heard you,” I said finally.
He nodded. “That’s more than I deserve.”
We stayed there a little longer, just trying to breathe under the same sky. It wasn’t healing, not yet. But it didn’t feel like war anymore. And for now… that was enough.
