We eventually moved to the bed. Just a slow migration from couch to mattress, both of us too tired to make it seem like anything other than what it was—relief. We lay there on our sides, face to face. Close, but not touching. Breaths soft. Eyes locked.
We didn't speak.
We just stared at each other, like two people trying to memorize every line, every flicker. The room was dark except for the glow of the streetlamp outside cutting stripes across the wall. Our shadows moved slightly with each breath, brushing past one another on the sheets.
It felt like we were waiting. To see who would blink first. Who would break the silence. Who would be brave.
"Can I ask you questions now?" Reed whispered, voice low and raw, like it had traveled a long way just to get to me.
"Yes," I said, without hesitation.
His eyes narrowed slightly. "Have you ever killed anyone?"
"No," I answered before the question could fully leave his mouth.
He relaxed visibly, like something unclenched in his chest. "Good," he murmured. "Good."
A beat passed.
"How did you end up this way?" he asked next. There was no edge to it. No judgment. Just quiet curiosity. Like he was finally giving himself permission to wonder out loud.
I let the silence stretch for a breath, then another. And then I spoke.
"My mother was an undocumented immigrant from Belarus," I began. "We moved to the UK when I was small. I don't remember the journey. Just flashes. Rain. Cold floors. The sound of her singing in the dark. She got caught eventually—deported. Just gone one morning. No warning. No goodbye."
Reed didn't move. Just listened. Eyes wide, steady.
"I got placed in an orphanage. Then another. And another. I was angry all the time. I broke things. I picked fights. I stole sweets, because they wouldn't give them to me, and I hated being told no."
I paused. The words felt strange coming out, like digging through a box I hadn't opened in years.
"I kept stealing. Kept getting caught. The things got bigger. A phone here. A wallet there. I didn't care. Juvenile detention centers became a second home. I learned how to take a punch before I learned how to read a bank form."
Reed's fingers twitched slightly on the blanket between us, but he didn't reach for me.
"Street fights happened," I said. "A lot of them. I think I wanted someone to stop me. Or to win. Or to hit me hard enough that something changed. And then…"
I exhaled.
"Then one day, this guy found me."
I felt Reed watching me—still, attentive—but not in a way that pressured me to speak. Just in a way that told me he was here. Present. Listening. And I hadn't had that in a long time.
"His name was Ilya," I continued. "He used to visit juvenile centers. Posed as a social worker, even had credentials to match. Everyone thought he was some outreach guy, part of a reintegration program. But he wasn't. He was looking for kids who were already half-chewed by the system. Kids with no family. No paper trail. No one checking in."
I shifted slightly on the mattress, the memory sitting like gravel in my throat.
"He'd pick a few each year. Ones who showed 'initiative.' That's what he called it. Really, he just meant kids who had already figured out how to lie well and take a hit without flinching."
Reed's brows furrowed gently. His hand hadn't moved, but I could feel his body leaning slightly toward me—like something about this part made him tense.
"I was sixteen when he pulled me out. Not legally, of course. Just disappeared me into a new place, new clothes, a fake school ID. He said he was offering a chance—a life where I wouldn't be passed around anymore, where I could matter. First job was simple. Pretend to be someone's son during a client dinner. Smile, keep quiet, eat neatly. They were trying to close some deal and wanted to look family-friendly."
I laughed bitterly, the sound flat against the night.
"I thought it was weird. But I did it. And I kept doing stuff like that. Playing a role. Looking clean. Presentable. Eastern European enough to pass for whatever they needed, but bland enough to not be suspicious."
Reed's expression hadn't changed. But something in his gaze had sharpened. Not judgment. Not pity. Just clarity.
"By eighteen, I was signing documents I didn't understand," I said. "They coached me on what to say in case anyone asked. At first, it was little things—bank setups, fake shell companies, fake names. Then I started traveling. Wearing suits. Holding meetings. 'Consulting' on things I didn't realize were laundering routes until much, much later."
"And by the time I understood," I said, voice quieter now, "it was too late. I was good at it. And they liked that I looked like I belonged in a room full of executives."
Reed didn't interrupt. His eyes hadn't moved from mine.
"I got assigned a handler. Emiliano. He cleaned up any mess I couldn't. Helped craft the 'Prince' nonsense. It gave us legitimacy. Mystery. People eat that shit up, especially when it comes with polished shoes and ambiguous accents."
I swallowed, jaw tightening slightly.
"Ilya died a few years ago. Cancer. Slow. Unremarkable. By then, I'd already replaced him. Just a better suit, cleaner teeth, and fewer visible scars."
A long silence stretched between us.
And then I added, softly, "I didn't mean for it to go on this long. I thought… I thought I'd get out by now. But they don't really let you leave. Not when you're the one who knows where everything is buried."
I looked at Reed.
"But then I met you. And for the first time, I thought about what freedom could actually look like."
-Reed.
The silence between us stretched again. Not uncomfortable—but loaded, like a space between breaths that had to be filled eventually.
"Did you ever have anyone?" I asked softly, my voice barely rising above the hum of the city outside. "Before me, I mean."
Lucien blinked slowly. His lips parted like he hadn't expected the question, or maybe he had—but not here, not now, not while we were lying in the dark with grief still drying on my face.
He didn't answer immediately.
Then finally, he exhaled.
"There was Rachel," he said.
The name didn't hit like a punch. It landed like a sigh. Like something already lost.
"She was never part of any of this," he added. "Not at the beginning."
I turned onto my side a little more, trying to see his face better. He wasn't looking at me—he was looking at the ceiling, like the past had painted itself up there in faint, bruised outlines.
"We met in a pub. One of those low-lit places with cheap gin and too many football scarves hanging from the ceiling. I was there on some half-assed meeting with a guy who was late, and she was at the bar arguing with the bartender about the music. I don't know why—maybe it was the way she didn't give a shit, or maybe it was just timing—but I thought I fell in love with her that night."
There was a small smile on his lips now. It wasn't fond. Not romantic. Just tired.
"We dated for years. Four, maybe five—I lost count toward the end. I kept her far from this world. She thought I was some vague investor type. I had offices, contacts, a schedule. It was enough to sell the illusion. She didn't ask too many questions. Or maybe she did, and I got too good at brushing them away."
He paused. I could feel his breath shift against the mattress.
"Then Sandro found out about her. At first, I thought he was just poking around—curious. But then he started showing up where she worked. Saying things. And then one day he offered her a job. Told her it was luxury hostess work. High-end clients. Travel. Good pay. I didn't know until it was already too late," Lucien said, voice thinning. "She didn't tell me. Not right away. But eventually I found out. She'd started working for one of the clubs tied to him. He recruited her as an escort."
"Jesus," I whispered.
"She said she liked the money," he continued. "That it was freeing. That she didn't have to rely on me anymore. I think part of her was angry at me for the lies I never confessed. She could sense there was a world I lived in without her, and Sandro offered her a door into it. A controlled one. One where she held some power."
He finally looked at me.
"She didn't love me by then. Maybe she never did. I don't know."
I didn't say anything. Not because I didn't want to—but because I could see the way it still lived in him. Not as longing or regret. But as scar tissue.
"What happened after?" I asked.
"She stayed with him," he said simply. "Until he didn't need her anymore."
And that was it.
That was all he said. But it was enough.
Lucien's voice faded into silence, and for a moment, neither of us moved.
He stayed on his back, eyes still on the ceiling like the past hadn't quite let go of him yet. And I stayed where I was, lying beside him, watching him breathe—slow, deliberate, like he was waiting for judgment that never came.
But I didn't say anything.
I didn't offer comfort or condolences. Didn't try to patch it up with words that couldn't possibly reach back far enough.
Instead, I shifted quietly, almost imperceptibly, and pulled the blanket up over both of us. A soft, simple gesture. One of those small domestic things people do when the storm hasn't passed but they're tired of standing in the rain.
I tucked the corner near his shoulder. He didn't flinch. He didn't speak.
And I didn't move away.
I just stayed.
And in the silence between his confession and the sunrise neither of us were ready for, that was the answer.
I stayed.
He was quiet for a while after that.
The kind of quiet that feels like a threshold. Like if I breathed too loudly, it might all vanish again.
And then, without turning to face me, Rowan spoke.
"I understand," he said, voice low and level, but threaded with something brittle, "if you don't want anything to do with me anymore."
I kept staring at the ceiling.
"I can leave," he continued, more gently this time. "I can disappear. Never come back to the office. Wipe everything. Wipe me. You won't have to worry about people asking questions. About being tied to any of this."
He paused, like he was weighing whether to say the next part.
"I set up a bank account," he said. "Under your name. There's money in it. A lot. Quiet money. Untouched. Just for you. No strings. It was supposed to be yours in case… well, in case I messed up."
He let out a shaky breath.
"And I did. I have. More than once."
I turned my head just enough to look at him. His face was still turned up toward the ceiling, his expression unreadable in the dim light.
"You're already too pure for this shit," he said. "Even if you didn't realize it. I've always known you were too good to be sitting across forged documents and phony clients. You walked into something you shouldn't have, and I let you stay. Because I liked having you near. Because I was selfish."
His voice cracked, barely.
"So if you want out, Reed, I'll let you out. No matter the cost. You don't owe me anything. And I know you only want me here tonight because… you need comfort. And that's okay. I'll be that. Just for tonight. And then I'll go."
I turned fully toward him, resting my weight on my elbow, eyes burning—not from tears this time, but from the way my chest ached under the truth I hadn't said yet.
"No," I whispered, voice steady despite the mess in my chest.
He turned to look at me then. Slowly. Like he hadn't expected to be allowed to.
"No," I said again, firmer. "I'd already decided to forgive you before she died."
He blinked.
I kept going. "It's true—I need you right now. For comfort. For silence. For just... being here. But that's not all I want from you."
I swallowed, the words rising with more clarity than anything had in days.
"I want you. For everything else, too."
He stared at me, his expression tight, eyes wet—but he didn't look away.
"I know you're not a bad person, Rowan, not in the brutal, merciless way at least" I said, voice shaking. "And maybe if my life had been one inch to the left, I could've ended up in your place. I knew this wasn't legal. I knew from day one. But I liked the money."
I reached for his hand beneath the blanket. Found it. Held it.
"But more than that—I liked you."
And then, quietly—without the dramatics, without the grief, without the fear: "I love you, Rowan."
His breath hitched.
"This isn't grief talk," I added. "This isn't sadness."
I leaned in, pressing my forehead to his.
"This is just the truth."
For a moment, he just lay there—still, stunned, like the words were too big to fit inside him all at once. Like he didn't know where to put them.
I didn't pull away.
My forehead was still pressed to his. My hand still closed around his, fingers threaded not tightly, but intentionally. Like I wasn't holding him in place—I was simply here, and that meant something.
Then, slowly, he exhaled. Not a dramatic, soul-bearing sigh. Just a soft breath, shaky and human. Like someone finally allowed to breathe after holding it for too long.
He turned toward me fully, arms moving with hesitant purpose—until they wrapped around my waist and pulled me in, so gently it nearly broke me. I went willingly, burying my face into the crook of his neck, where the scent of him was still there, even now—clean, warm, familiar in a way I hadn't let myself acknowledge until this very second.
He held me like something fragile.
Not like I might break.
But like he might.
His fingers splayed across my back, drawing small, steady circles with the pads of his thumbs, like he was grounding himself. Like I was something solid in a world that had never given him anything steady to lean on.
"I don't deserve you," he whispered against my hair.
"You're wrong," I murmured back, "but we can fight about that later."
That made him laugh—quiet and breathless—but it was the sound of someone who hadn't felt that kind of permission in a long, long time.
We stayed like that.
Two people stitched together by grief and guilt and something much softer underneath it all. Not forgiveness, not yet. Not completely. But grace.
His hands didn't leave me.
And mine didn't leave him.
We didn't sleep right away. We just stayed tangled together in the dark, breathing each other in, letting the silence rest with us, not between us.
Because in that moment... there was nothing else to do. No plan to make. No mask to wear. Just a choice.
And we made it. Together.