“The law is clear,” he said, but something in his voice wavered. Exhaustion, maybe, something close to resignation. The bone deep weariness of someone who’d repeated the same words so many times they’d lost meaning.

“Your law.” She jabbed a finger at his chest, connecting with a solid wall of muscle. “Your father’s law. Written by murderers to protect murderers.”

His hand shot up, catching her wrist before she could pull back. His grip was firm but not painful, his thumb pressing against her pulse point where her heart hammered its rage.

“Careful,” he said, voice dropping low. “The walls have ears.”

She knew they were listening. Every word they spoke recorded, analyzed, judged. But the anger burning through her didn’t care about consequences anymore.

These people had taken everything—her parents, her freedom, her hope. Now they wanted to parade her around like a prized animal, use her to break the spirits of those still fighting.

“Let them listen.” She stood there, letting him feel her pulse race with hatred. “Let your father hear exactly what I think of his empire built on the bones of the people you killed.”

She pulled her wrist free, shoving a step away from him. Still he didn’t move. Only watched her, watched the emotions break through her composure.

“How many people have you killed, Greyson? Hundreds? Thousands? Do you even keep count anymore, or do they all just blur together?”

He straightened at her words, pushing off the desk and taking a step away from her as if to ground himself from the question.

“Every one,” he said, his nostrils flaring as he sucked in a sharp breath. “I remember every one.”

She hadn’t expected that answer, hadn’t expected vulnerability. The raw truth. She studied his face, looking for the lie, the manipulation.

“Then you’re more of a monster than I thought.” The words came out softer than she’d intended. “You remember them, and you keep killing.”

“Yes.” Simple. Final.

No justification, no excuse.

The honesty of it knocked something loose in her chest. She’d expected denial, rationalization, the usual Heart propaganda about necessary evils and greater goods. Not flat out acknowledgment of what he was.

She moved without thinking, drawn by the ache screaming beneath her sternum. Her hand reached for his collar, fingers finding the dried blood. Greyson went stiff but didn’t stop her as she traced the stain.

“This boy,” she started, her voice a whisper. “What was his name?”

“Marcus Chen.” No hesitation. “From Cardinal South. Three younger siblings. Mother works in the processing plants. Father executed three years ago for smuggling.”

Each detail was a knife precisely placed. He knew exactly who he’d killed, knew the life he’d ended and the lives he’d destroyed in the process.

And still he’d pulled the trigger.

“You’re sick.” She pulled back, the blood ghosting over the pad of her finger making her skin crawl. “You know what you are doing is evil and you do it anyway.”

“Evil.” Greyson seemed to taste the word, roll it around in his mouth like a fine wine. “Is that what you call it when you slit someone’s throat for credits? When you poison a Cardinal merchant who skimmed from the wrong shipment? Or is it only evil when I do it?”

“I never pretended to be anything other than what I am. I kill people who help the Heart, not those oppressed by it. And I’m not ashamed of that. Not ashamed to be a killer if it means making the Heart suffer.”

He pulled the bottle from her fingers and took a large drink. “The only difference is you get to choose your contracts. I don’t. We’re both murderers. We just pay a different price for those deaths.”

“What price do you pay?” Shadera spat back at him.

His eyes flickered to the papers on the floor behind her so quickly she almost missed it. A shadow fell over his eyes, something haunted filling his irises.

“You wanted me to kill you, didn’t you? You wanted to die. I saw it in your eyes when you took off your mask. You wanted me to end it.”

He went still.

“You don’t know what you saw,” he said quietly, his eyes not meeting hers.

“I know exactly what I saw. I’ve seen that look before. In the mirror.”

Shadera blamed the honesty on the vodka, or maybe it was exhaustion. She watched him, his eyes still locked on the papers behind her, and her mind drifted back to the medical report, how he’d kept it. The evidence of abuse hidden behind clinical language.

“Your father nearly killed you three years ago.”

His expression didn’t change, but she caught the minute flinch in his shoulders, the way his breathing hitched for just a moment. Her guess had been correct.

“Training accident,” he said.

“Bullshit.” She picked up the report, waving it between them. “These injuries—broken ribs, internal bleeding, skull fracture—someone beat you, systematically. Someone who knew exactly how much damage you could take without dying.”

“Drop it.” The words came out of Greyson low and dangerous.

She’d finally found something. A crack in his armor.

“What did you do? Refuse an execution? Show mercy to a rebel? Or did he just need to remind you who owns you?”

He moved faster than Shadera expected, closing the distance between them in one stride. His hand wrapped around her throat, not quite painful but tight enough to make her freeze. She could see the vein pulsing along his throat, the barely controlled fury in those blue eyes.

“I said, drop it,” Greyson growled down at her, his fingers flexing against her skin.

She should’ve backed down. Should’ve recognized the danger in his voice. Instead she smiled up at him.

“Did you cry?” She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper. “When he broke your bones, when he made you understand what you really are to him—just another tool, another weapon to maintain his power—did you cry?”

His grip on her throat tightened, his other hand curling into a fist around the bottle’s neck. Then she saw it. Saw the flash of memory in his eyes, the ghost of that pain still living in his body all these years later.

She didn’t flinch.

Greyson held her there, their bodies nearly touching, the silence between them growing dangerous.

She saw it in him—a kind of violence that ran colder than fury, a violence so practiced it’d become routine. He could’ve snapped her neck in that moment, she knew it. Could’ve ended the whole charade, and maybe he even wanted to. But he didn’t. She watched him make the choice not to. Watched his jaw work, watched his nostrils flare wide, watched the blue in his eyes narrow to a killing moon.

He released her with a shove, as if disgusted by the idea of her taking up his air. She rocked back, legs catching herself before she could stumble. The skin of her neck throbbed, heat pulsing from every spot his fingers had pressed. She let herself cough, once, not enough to give him satisfaction, just enough to clear her windpipe.

Greyson stalked to the window, his free hand dragging down his face as he looked out over the city. Shadera watched the tremor that plagued his other hand as he rose the bottle to his lips. It was so slight no one else would’ve noticed it, but she was a connoisseur of pain. Especially the kind that haunted the living.

“I need you to leave,” he said as he turned back to face her. His gaze had gone flat, not a single ounce of emotion to be found in their depths.

“No.” Shadera’s back straightened in defiance.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose before his eyes locked on to hers.

“Shadera.” A pause. “I want to kill you.” The cadence of his statement sent a shiver crawling down her spine. “If you do not leave right now, I’m going to kill you.”

There was something about the admission, something so dead in his gaze, that she didn’t question the sincerity of it. She hesitated for only a second, her eyes staying locked on his as her heart began to race, then finally, she fled the room.