Chapter 39
This morning feels off. I barely slept, and I don’t think he did either. He stayed turned away from me all night, his back to me the whole time. His breathing was shaky and uneven, like he was still tense or unsettled.
At some point I fell asleep, and when I woke up, he wasn’t there.
The bed felt wrong without him in it. I threw on my clothes and walked through the place, which felt even bigger in the morning.
A few staff members greeted me as I passed.
That still feels strange—not everyone here moves or looks like my father’s people—but I didn’t ask if they’d seen him.
I really need coffee.
I step into the kitchen and see Grayson at the stove, moving between a pot and a frying pan like this is routine for him. He’s doing several things at once, precise and amazingly capable. The place smells like pancakes and something savory underneath—butter maybe.
For a second, I just stand there and watch him. He doesn’t notice me right away. Then he shifts and looks over his shoulder.
“Good morning, Miss Calvano,” he says with a bright smile, pushing his thin-framed glasses back into place.
“You can call me Isabella,” I say. “Do you need any help?”
He gives me a playful glance. “No.” He grabs the freshly brewed coffee jar. “Coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
He takes a white mug and pours me some. “Mind if I join you?”
“It would be my pleasure.”
He grabs another mug and pours himself some too. He gestures toward the chair. “Have a seat.”
He seems old, but not too old. Time has creased the corners of his light green eyes. His gray hair is neatly kept, his face clean-shaven. There’s an old-school warmth to him, something careful and polite in the way he holds himself.
I take a sip of the coffee. “It’s perfect.”
He smiles faintly. “A very smart kid once gave me a tip to make the perfect coffee.”
“Yeah? What tip?”
He takes a sip. “A pinch of cocoa powder. It brings out the flavor.”
My brows lift. “So simple, yet so effective.”
“Yes. I’ve kept the habit all these years,” he says, his eyes brightening. “I can’t drink my coffee without it anymore.”
“And how would a kid know what could make coffee taste better?” I ask, lowering my voice as if I’m waiting for the world’s deepest secret.
“His mother hated coffee,” he says softly, lowering his mug to the table. “But one day, she craved it.”
A small smile touches his lips. “The kid adored cocoa milk. Couldn’t get enough of it.” He pauses, thumb tracing the edge of his cup. “So he leaned in and whispered that if I added a little of that to her coffee, she’d love it too. Like the way he loved his milk.”
I hold my breath. “And?”
He exhales, eyes drifting to the steam rising between us. “It was the first, and only, time she ever loved her coffee.”
He seems so … normal. Genuine and warm. Parental, somehow, in this shitty reality I’ve grown up in. Nothing like anything I’ve ever known.
I think I already know the answer, but I ask anyway.
“The kid you’re talking about …” I say hesitantly.
He nods once, slowly. “It’s Adam.”
Such a strange story. He speaks in riddles about his mother, but from what I’ve understood, and from what I’ve seen, he was scared of her. She didn’t sound like a good one. Maybe even worse than mine.
And yet, his childish, innocent mind kept trying to please her, still hopeful enough to believe that trying harder might make her happy.
“Have you known him long?” I ask, resting my face in my palm.
He adjusts his glasses, thoughtful.
“I’ve been with this family since before Adam was born. I was twenty-four, maybe twenty-five, when his father hired me to help around the house. Alice didn’t have children then.”
After a moment, he adds, “Not long after, she became pregnant with her first.”
“Adam has a brother?”
He nods. “Cain.”
He takes a sip, his eyes distant.
“Soon, Alice grew worse. Much worse. She started slipping. The pills, you see … there were too many. Some days, she barely knew where she was.”
He hesitates, fingers tightening around the mug.
“And then she … she got pregnant again.”
“Adam?” I ask.
“M-hm.” His eyes darken. “My poor Alice went through so many things. She was in no state to protect herself back then.” He shakes his head, almost to himself, lowering his gaze. “I should have been there more. I should have noticed sooner.”
My Alice …?
“She only smiled when Cain was around,” he continues. “Cain and Judas.”
“Who’s Judas?”
“Her brother’s kid.” He adjusts his glasses again, not looking at me. “Adam’s cousin.”
The question has been gnawing at me. Wasn’t she happy when she was with Adam? Only with the other two? Why?
I want answers, but they’re not mine to demand. If Adam wants to tell me, he will. Eventually, he will.
“He’s never spoken about this place,” I say, taking a sip of my coffee.
“It was never pleasant for him,” he replies. “So I suppose being here must be for a very important reason.”
He looks at me then, a playful glint in his eyes.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“As a kid, he always had nightmares,” he says, staring into his coffee. “Strange for someone his age. But then again … maybe it wasn’t, considering the way he grew up.”
He exhales slowly, rubbing a hand over his mouth.
“People called him an asshole. Said he rebelled too early. But I know better. He was exhausted. Sick of everything.” He gives a small shake of his head. “He just wanted out of this place—and he couldn’t get away.”
He pauses, fingers tightening around the mug again, then continues, quieter.
“Until one day, he ran.” His gaze drifts to the window, unfocused. “I lost track of him after that. He just … grew up.” He looks down at his hands. “Faster than he ever should have.”
I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about it. I’m grateful, of course I am. He’s risking his own peace to protect me.
But I can’t stop thinking about him.
How is this fair to him?
How is it right that he’s the one paying the price?
“I see him like my own son,” he says quietly. “I never saw any difference between him and … the rest.”
He exhales slowly, shaking his head. “My poor Adam.” He runs a hand through his hair, fingers catching there for a moment.
I see the guilt trapped inside him, and it’s hard to reconcile. So composed. So certain about everything else, yet completely lost when it comes to Adam.
“After years of looking, I found out he was homeless,” he adds quietly.
“What?”
“Then they found him,” he says. “The wrong kind of people.” He raises his eyes, holding my gaze. “They gave him a choice. Become a monster like them or die.”
The fraternity.
For the first time, doubt creeps in. Then again, maybe I’m wrong.
“And how do you know all this?” I ask, raising a brow. “You said you lost track of him.”
“Because eventually, I found him.”
“Then why didn’t you help him?”
“He was already too far gone. He barely spoke to me.” His gaze drops to the table. “That’s how he was after Alice died. Silent. Closed off. He didn’t ask for help. He grew up alone.”
So much guilt trapped in one man. And yet, I can’t deny how loving he seems. How careful. How deeply he still cares.
Maybe Adam misunderstood him.
Maybe he was too selfish back then to see how much Grayson cared, and still does. Or maybe Adam is just tired. Tired of explaining himself. Tired of correcting people.
Maybe it was easier to turn Grayson into another failure than to admit someone stayed or cared. Or maybe Adam simply got tired of being anything other than what people had already decided he was.
Maybe it’s easier for him to let them believe he’s something else.
Something worse.
Something they expect.
Grayson goes quiet for a moment, fingers still wrapped around his mug.
“People talk,” he says eventually.
I glance up. “About what?”
“About him. About what he became.” His eyes flick to mine. “About the rumor he built around himself.”
“What rumor?”
His eyes remain on the cup in his hand. “Bane, Bane, every mouth knows his name …”
My breath catches in my throat. It’s not possible.
“I thought that was just stupid stuff kids did.”
He shakes his head. “I know it was Adam behind it. And this song—this name—it isn’t random. It isn’t meaningless.” His voice drops. “He wiped out an entire rival fraternity. Alone.”
“Alone.” The word doesn’t register right away. “You mean like …” I hesitate, searching for something that makes sense. “Like that movie about the man who killed everyone with a pencil?”
He doesn’t smile. “Adam did it with his hands.”
I let out a long exhale and lower my eyes, pretending I can’t believe it, while in fact I do.
I know what he is.
He’s a killer, and I don’t get to soften that. I don’t get to pretend it’s a rumor, a story, or something exaggerated by people who wanted a monster to point at.
He killed them, sure. Hell, he killed my mother.
The worst part is that I understand it. Not why or fully, but the fact of it doesn’t shock me the way it should.
This is who Adam is. Or at least part of who he is.
And still, when I think of him, that’s not what comes first.
I think of the way he watches me, or when he measures the room for threats. The way his voice drops when he talks to me. The way he stays.
I should be repulsed, I know. I should pull away before this corrodes something inside me.
Instead, I feel torn in half.
Because the man who kills is the same man who protects. The same hands. The same restraint. The same silence.
And knowing what those hands have done doesn’t make me want to run. It makes my chest tighten with something close to fear, and something dangerously close to wanting. Something familiar.
I hate that I don’t know where the line is anymore.
I hate that I’m standing on it, balancing, telling myself I’m still in control.
Adam is a killer.
I know that.
And I don’t know what it says about me that I still want him anyway.
I still believe he’s the asshole I thought he was in the beginning. He still pisses me off more than I dare to admit, with his cunning smirks and spiteful attitude. Yet I still see the man I thought he was when I first saw him.
Someone I want to be next to.
Someone who wants to be loved and is tired of asking for it.
Someone like me.