Chapter 21
SOPHIA
Ian and Andrei are on either side of Reth. He’s on the floor of the shower with his back against the tile, arms slung over his knees, head dropped forward. The water hits his shoulders and runs off him in pink rivulets, paint and blood thinning together before they spiral down the drain.
“I’d like to be alone with him.”
Ian looks up at me. “Absolutely not.”
“Please.”
“He’s unpredictable when he’s like this.”
“I won’t hurt her.”
My gaze cuts to Reth, his head still low, and Ian inches back, just a little. “You sure, man?”
“I won’t. Hurt her.”
Ian’s eyes lock on mine, keeps it there, reading me the way he does, that sharp green assessment that misses nothing. Then he looks at Andrei, tips his head once toward the door, and they both straighten.
As he passes me on the way out, he doesn’t say a word, which is the kindest thing he could do.
Andrei follows, and the door clicks shut behind them, the room going quiet except for the water.
I stand there, taking him in, my heart beating impossibly fast.
Reth hasn’t moved. Shoulders hunched forward in defeat, wet, dark hair plastered against his forehead.
The buff—that black fabric mask he always wears—remains in place over the lower half of his face, now sodden and clinging to the contours of his jaw.
It pulls at my insides, the picture of him looking both threatening and helpless.
His chest rises and falls in shallow, uneven pulls, like breathing is something he has to remind himself to do. Every line of him looks… wrong. Not just injured. Not just exhausted. Broken. Like something inside him has been cracked open and left that way.
It’s a careful movement as I take one of the folded towels from the metal bar and lean into the spray to twist the faucet handle. My hand’s shaking a little as I lower myself in front of him, not caring that water seeps into my tights.
He doesn’t look up, and I wait. Patiently. Just watching him. Just being there with him.
After a long moment, slowly, like it costs him everything, he raises his head and his eyes find mine. My breath catches, because for the first time since I’ve known him, there’s no filter. No distance. No carefully maintained wall.
Just him.
The expression on his face is something stripped down to bone, raw and open, silently bleeding. It’s the look of someone who has finally run out of places to hide the broken parts.
His gaze doesn’t waver. It doesn’t flinch. It simply holds—open, unguarded, like he’s handing me the last piece of himself, waiting to see if I’ll crush it or keep it.
I want to keep it.
Lifting my hand with the towel, I let it hover between us.
A silent way of asking permission. There’s no rush.
No sound except the slow drip from the showerhead and the shallow rasp of his breathing.
I watch his face—really watch—for the smallest flinch, the tiniest furrow between his brows, anything that says stop.
Nothing comes.
With the towel between my fingers, I press it gently against his temple, over the smeared edge where white meets black, where blood has dried into rust-colored streaks. The paint gives way in slow, reluctant strokes, clinging to the terry cloth like it doesn’t want to let go.
Careful, reverent, I move in tiny circles, tracing the arch of his brow, the hollow at the corner of his eye, revealing the bruise there.
He doesn’t blink, his lashes dark and wet, spiked together at the tips, but his gaze doesn’t move from my face.
It’s like he’s trying to decide whether I’m real or not, thinking I’ll vanish if he looks away.
So I keep wiping, easing to the other side, watching as the paint gets stripped away one stroke at a time.
Deep inside, my heart beats a staccato, like the blood in my veins knows this moment means something. Like this matters. That it’s the line I’m choosing to cross, the one that will change everything and leave no way back.
A breath snags in my throat as my fingers hover at the edge of the buff, then curl gently around the damp seam where mask meets skin.
Touching him here feels like reaching into the darkest part of him—the part he’s hidden from the world, from me, from himself—and the intimacy of it steals the air from my lungs.
I feel the tremor in his jaw under my fingertips, and I know he feels it too, this quiet, terrifying surrender.
Until I made myself…unpretty.
Our eyes stay locked as I slowly—so slowly it feels like time is stretching thin—ease it down. Abruptly, he grabs my wrist, and I suck in a breath. Neither of us moves, his thumb resting over my pulse point. I can feel it, my heartbeat racing against his skin.
“If you want me to trust you,” I say quietly, “you need to trust me, too.”
For a second, I expect him to pull back, to get up and rush out. But instead, his grip loosens to a touch, fingertips lingering before slowly letting go. It’s a quiet acceptance, and I use it.
Real unpretty.
I scoot closer across the wet tile until my knees press against the insides of his thighs, his legs spread, drawn up, feet flat on the floor. I nestle between them, and the contact is immediate.
His thighs tense against mine, muscles shifting, heat radiating through the damp fabric of his jeans and my tights. I feel every small tremor that runs through him, the way his legs press lightly against the outsides of my hips, caging me without trapping me.
I’m violence…she’s porcelain.
Our chests are barely a handspan apart now, and I gently ease the fabric away from his face, millimeter by millimeter, watching the paint-smeared skin appear beneath it. I keep going, the buff halfway down, caught on the curve of his mouth, the sharp line of his jaw.
My thumb brushes the edge of his lip, barely a touch, just enough to feel the split skin, and he inhales sharply through his nose, the sound jagged, like it hurts to let air in.
I won’t hurt her.
The black material slides over his chin then drops free, pooling around his throat, and I still.
Beneath the smudged paint, I see it—skin that looks wrong, a ridged path curling up like a pale rope stitched into him by someone who hated every inch they touched.
My breath stutters, ragged and shallow, and my lips part because I can’t get enough air. The whole world narrows to this one terrible, beautiful line on his face, and my heart cracks open so wide I feel it in my throat, in my veins, in every place I’ve tried to keep safe.
I lean my head to the side, eyes locked on the scar, then dragging up to meet his—wide, uncertain—then back to the scar again, like if I look long enough I can understand how deep the wound goes, how long it’s been bleeding inside him.
My movements are slow, each one its own small thing, because this feels like something that shouldn’t be rushed. This feels like the most important thing I’ve done in my entire life.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. He’s waiting.
Waiting for me to pull away. Waiting for the flinch he’s spent years expecting from everyone who ever got this close.
I don’t pull away. I don’t divert my gaze. Instead, I take the towel and wipe away the paint that clings to the scar like black and white chaos, revealing the pale, raised line beneath.
It’s thicker than I expected, smoother in places, rougher in others, a belt of scar tissue that curls from the corner of his mouth upward in a jagged arc, disappearing just beneath his cheekbone.
I trace it with the towel until the last smudge of black dissolves and the scar lies bare under the light.
I still, barely able to inhale. He’s beautiful. Even bruised and scarred, he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. Not in a safe, easy to look at way. Beautiful in the way fire is beautiful, or ruined cathedrals, or anything made holy by survival.
Beautiful in a way that hurts.
I suck my bottom lip into my mouth, placing a finger just below the corner of his lips where the cruel texture starts. His throat bobs as he swallows hard, gaze etched on my face as I ease my touch along the jagged scar, entranced like it’s telling a story, giving me a window to look through.
“What happened?” My fingers hover, and he places his hand over mine, keeping it there.
“I died.”
Something inside me hollows out. They gave her money…for me. Said I was pretty. Until I made myself…unpretty.
“You…” God, it hurts to even say it out loud. “You did this…to yourself.”
“Are you afraid of me?”
My soul breaks as I keep my hand beneath his. “No.”
“You should be.”
I keep staring at the scar. “I know.”
He closes his eyes, only for a second, but the defeat in it pierces clear through me. The tiredness. The way he wants me to let go, to pull my hand away, but also the ache for it, the hope that I don’t.
A tear slips free, down my cheek, just as he opens his eyes.
For one heartbeat, something flickers in those battered eyes, like he’s seeing me for the first time and realizing I’m still here.
Like he’s waiting for the moment I finally understand what he is and run.
But I don’t run. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.
Instead, I slide in closer, and the faint tremor that runs through him matches the one in me, bone-deep and unstoppable. Our noses brush, barely, and I hear the sharp inhale he takes, labored, like breathing hurts.
I whisper against his lips, “Who are you to me?”
“I’m no one to you, Sophia Sinclair.” A hand settles on my waist, and the touch moves through my bones. “But you are everything to me.”
It’s an implosion, a gravitational collapse of every last inhibition, and all that’s left is the quiet, unshakable certainty that this man…he’s mine.
I kiss him. A soft press of lips, barely more than contact, and he inhales sharply, a broken breath vibrating against my mouth.