Chapter 25 - LEO
Idon’t remember deciding to come back to Ethan’s apartment, but I remember the elevator. The silence and shock that filled the space. The way my hands wouldn’t stop trembling even after the doors closed and sealed the city outside.
I remember all that blood, the smashed-in face of that prick of a man who wouldn’t stop hounding me like a piece of meat.
The sound his body made when it hit the floor.
It’s nothing like what you see in the movies, it’s so much more crude watching violence like that.
You can literally smell the blood in the air. It made me feel sick and confused.
And then I remember Ethan’s face. Not angry or wild, just empty, like something essential to being human had been switched off. That’s what follows me up here into this amazing penthouse, not my body, but his face. He looked like a stranger, so cold and demonic.
A monster’s face.
But here I am, willingly back with him at his place. Is it through fear? Loyalty? Confusion? I have no answers. I just follow him down the hallway of quiet wealth, my pulse in my throat, my thoughts tangled and incoherent.
His penthouse is dark except for the city spilling in through the windows. New York glitters like a nervous system outside, alive and unaware of the drama that’s gone down tonight, of the evil that lurks.
Ethan doesn’t ask if I’m okay, he doesn’t apologize and he doesn’t explain. I watch as he removes his jacket, sets it down with surgical neatness, and pours himself a drink.
I stand near the hallway like I might run, but I don’t.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” I say finally.
He turns and looks at me the way he always does. Like he is not seeing a person, but an equation to solve.
“You came because you wanted to,” he says.
“I came because I was scared.”
“Yes, and you need to be close to me,” he says and the word lands softly.
“You still want me, Leo. Nothing will change that.”
I swallow as I move closer to the windows in the living room.
My reflection floats faintly in the glass behind him.
I look pale, like a ghost is wearing my face.
I’ve been lucky in my life to never be surrounded by violence like that.
It’s like an out of body experience. I was conflicted because the asshole was a creep and deserved it, but on the other hand, how can I condone such violence?
“You hurt him,” I whisper.
“Yes, he touched you,” he says with no shame.
“I could have been arrested, you could’ve been arrested.”
“But we weren’t. Dima’s bar isn’t like that. We’re safe there.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It is the only point.”
I close my eyes. When I open them again, I ask the question that’s been rotting inside me since we left.
“What are you?”
Ethan studies me, but not like a man being accused or one who is holding guilt. More like a puzzle deciding how much of itself to reveal.
“Honest,” he says.
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” he agrees. “I’m dangerous. There are no limits to what I will do, Leo.”
My throat tightens as he walks closer and I begin to regret asking the question. This isn’t a normal response. Does he feel nothing at all?
As he moves closer to me, my body reacts before my mind can argue. Fear should push me back, but instead, it pins me in place.
“I saw your face,” I say quietly, like I’m afraid someone else may hear. “When you hit him. There was nothing there. No emotion. No hesitation. You looked like —”
“A monster, yeah, you’ve already said.”
The word tastes like rust as he doesn’t deny it.
“I was horrified,” I continue. “I still am.”
“And yet you followed me.” My chest aches, struggling with the brutal reality.
“I don’t understand any of this. Why am I here? Why is it like this, Ethan?”
“It’s because you think fear and desire are opposites,” he says as he stops in front of me, so close I can feel his warmth.
“That’s not true,” I say, unable to comprehend his reasoning.
I look at him, at the perfect posture, perfect clothing, and the controlled breathing.
The absence behind his eyes. I always knew something was wrong from the beginning, that’s why I was so curious about him.
From the way he looked at me like hunger for another person was normal.
From how his voice never evoked feelings.
I just didn’t want to admit how much that wrongness pulled at me.
“You manipulate me,” I say.
“Yes.”
“You lie.”
“Yes.”
“You isolate me.”
“Yes.”
“You scare me,” I say as my voice cracks ever so slightly.
His expression softens, but it’s not with kindness, it’s with a sick satisfaction.
“And you feel more alive than you ever did before me.”
The words strike too true and I hate that.
I hate him for knowing and I hate myself for feeling it.
My thoughts drift to Sarah and the small apartment where dislike for one another has grown like mold.
The arguments about money when we didn’t have it compared to now when we do.
I remember the way her eyes hardened after my father died, like grief turned her into stone and how I ignored the changes.
When Ethan made us that offer, I was so tired of trying. So tired of being the only one still reaching. And now I see that with Ethan, I don’t reach, I fucking freefall.
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” I say, defeated.
“You’re becoming who you are meant to be,” he says.
“No, I’ve always been good.”
“This is better,” he says, voice like gravel and I shake my head.
“You’re changing me.”
“I am revealing your true self.”
“You’re breaking me, it was your goal all along. You warned me and I didn’t listen.”
His body is fully aligned with mine now and he tilts my head back with his hand on my chin, forcing us to face each other.
“I’m stripping away what was already dead.”
Tears sting my eyes but I don’t let them fall.
“I should hate you.”
“But you don’t. You need me, Leo. This is it. One can’t be without the other. I won’t let it happen.”
“I should leave.”
“You won’t.”
Fuck him. Fuck this whole fucking situation. This man set his path to collide with mine. To manipulate and control my life to become his. To break me down and play games until I don’t know which way is up anymore. I’m disgusted by tonight…but…I felt safe.
“I feel safe with you,” I say before thinking, immediately regretting letting him know that. The confession makes me nauseous because it’s as sick as he is, because it’s true. I’m safe with the monster, with the man who shattered another human being without blinking.
Ethan lifts his hand, but doesn’t touch me, just hovers his fingers over my lips.
“Feeling safe is not weak,” he says.
“You’re not normal.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You don’t love the way other people do.”
“No.”
“You don’t even see people the same way.”
“No.”
My voice drops to nothing.
“Then why do I feel like you see me more clearly than anyone ever has?”
He finally touches my mouth with a possessiveness that has my knees buckling.
“Because I was the first to see you, others made you invisible.”
“I was quiet.”
“Now you are loud inside yourself, you have found your inner spirit. The mask of the world that you thought made it a good place has shattered. All you see is the cold reality and the beauty inside of it.”
That’s it, that’s the truth I didn’t want, that he has woken something. Something reckless. Something starving. Something that doesn’t want safety…it wants intensity with meaning and an edge.
I pull away, unable to accept these thoughts. I can’t process all of this information.
“I hate this, I hate how you control me.”
“No you don’t. You need it, you crave it, Leo.”
“I hate that I want to stay,” I say, my stomach twists at my own words.
“I’m not an object, Ethan.”
“No, you’re my fixation,” he says.
That should terrify me, as this is what you hear on those psycho murder docu-series.
I’m one of those people that the viewers scream at to see the red flags and run for your life.
I’m that person. And like any brainwashed fool, all I feel beneath the terror is a warmth. A horrible, treacherous warmth.
I walk over and sink onto his couch and let my hands cover my face.
“I don’t know how to go back to my life now.”
“You don’t. This is your life now, here with me.”
“None of this is fair.”
“Real life isn’t fair. Neither was being unloved.”
That hurts more than anything else he’s said, because it’s the one truth I’ve not said out loud.
“I didn’t say she didn’t love me.”
“You did,” he replies calmly. “With your actions, as did she. You don’t sell someone you love.”
“What do you want from me?”
He crouches in front of me and levels his eyes with mine.
“Everything. Your body and soul. To be your only focus. I want to own you to the point where we are one person, that you cannot survive without me. Just like I refuse to breathe without you.”
My chest tightens painfully at that scary and horrific statement.
“That’s not love, Ethan.”
“No, it’s not in the way you have been programmed to think.”
“What is it then?”
He thinks for a moment and then stuns me with the mic drop.
“Ownership without the illusion.”
I close my eyes. Fuck me, I should run. I should scream, but my body is heavy and my heart confused. I can’t deny that somewhere deep inside, something broken in me recognizes him. He is my truth, but it comes with some deadly side effects.
“I’m scared of you,” I say.
“I know, but don’t be.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I don’t know if I can stop.”
“I know you won’t.”
Tears finally fall, silently but it fills me with relief as I whisper the ugliest truth I’ve ever known.
“I feel more real with you than I ever did with her.”
Ethan stands and offers his hand. The hand of something that does not hold doubt. I stare at it as it represents the future I shouldn’t choose, but I take it anyway. Because let’s face it, I’m tired and lonely, and the monster sees me. I don’t know how to survive being unseen again.