Chapter 4
KALEIGH
The next time they call me in, it’s after midnight. Pilar shows up at my door without warning, leaning against the frame like she owns the place, chewing on a piece of gum and looking like she’s just come from someone else’s bad decision.
“Boss wants another look,” she says before I can even ask why she’s here. “Your boy’s acting twitchy.”
“He’s not my anything,” I answer, stepping back to grab my bag.
“You say that now.”
I ignore her smirk, sling the strap over my shoulder, and lock the door behind me.
The ride is quiet. Pilar hums under her breath, something off-key and tuneless. I watch the city roll past the window in a wash of gold lights and dark alley mouths, the streets pulsing with life even at this hour. Seville doesn’t sleep. It simmers.
When we get there, Mateo isn’t waiting, and I’m glad for it. His brand of charm wears thin fast, like bad perfume and worse lies. Instead, one of the fight pit guards walks me down a narrow hall I didn’t see the first time. The walls are darker here, the light colder.
“Don’t stay too long,” the guard mutters before opening the door. “He’s… off tonight.”
That’s what they always say about men like Rafe. Off. Unstable. Like they’re machines malfunctioning instead of people unraveling.
I step inside and the door clicks shut behind me, sealing me in a room that’s all shadow and stillness and something else I can’t quite name. The kind of quiet that isn’t empty. The kind that holds its breath.
He’s already pacing when I enter, long strides that eat the floor, boots thudding with a rhythm just a little too tight, too fast. His hands are balled into fists, knuckles cracked and bandaged again, and sweat clings to the back of his neck, turning his black shirt darker. He doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t stop.
I sit.
I don’t speak right away. I let the silence stretch, let the rhythm of his pacing fill the space between us. Let him come to the idea that I’m not here to pry with prissy little questions and a clipboard full of diagnostic codes.
After two full laps, he finally glances at me. Not a full look. Just enough to register that I’m real and here and watching.
“You always walk in like that?” he asks, voice flat, not angry but already tired of the conversation.
“Like what?”
“Like you don’t give a damn what’s on the other side of the door.”
I lean back in the chair, cross one leg over the other, and fold my hands loosely in my lap. “I’ve found most things worth being afraid of don’t knock first.”
That gets something. A twitch at the edge of his mouth. Not quite a smile, not even a smirk. But something.
He keeps pacing. The room is bare except for the two chairs, a dented metal locker, and a sink that leaks just enough to mark time. The walls are the same dull gray as the rest of the pit, but the air feels different in here. Heavier. Thicker.
“Tell me about last night,” I say, gently. Not a command. Just an opening.
“No.”
“Alright,” I say, and I don’t push. “Then tell me about it right now.”
He stops mid-stride, turns toward me slowly. There’s something in his eyes I didn’t see last time. Not wildness. Not fury. This time it’s closer to wariness. Like he doesn’t know what to do with the quiet I bring.
“You really think talking helps?” he asks, tone low, almost thoughtful.
“I think silence helps men convince themselves they’re alone,” I reply. “And I think alone people do dangerous things.”
“I’ve done dangerous things in a crowd,” he says, and he moves again, slow this time, until he’s standing across from me. He doesn’t sit. Just watches.
“I believe that,” I say. “But I don’t think you enjoyed it as much as they say you did.”
He squints at me, like I’ve said something wrong or too right.
“You think you’ve got me figured out already?”
“I think you’re a lion trapped in a bull’s body,” I say, letting the words land without flinching.
His head tilts. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I don’t think rage is your first language. Just the one that gets the most attention.”
He doesn’t respond. He just turns away, walks to the wall, and braces both hands against it like he’s holding it up. The muscles in his back move under his shirt like tectonic plates, tight and flexing.
I stay quiet.
When he speaks again, it’s quieter. Rougher.
“There was a kid,” he says. “At the port. Said something… something I can’t get out of my head.”
I straighten just a little, but I don’t reach for my notebook.
“What did he say?”
“He told me I didn’t want it. The kill. Said it’d stay with me.”
“And did it?”
He lets out a sharp breath, not quite a laugh. “I’ve been carrying bodies since before you knew what a diagnosis code was.”
“That doesn’t mean your arms aren’t tired.”
He spins, eyes blazing now, and I see it. Not fury. Not menace. Hurt. Real and raw and completely unwelcome in his world.
“You think I’m just some wounded stray you can patch up with therapy and empathy?” he growls. “I’m not broken. I was made for this.”
“I don’t think you’re broken,” I say, voice steady, soft but never patronizing. “I think you were used like a weapon and told that made you one.”
He stares at me for a long moment, and I can tell he doesn’t know whether to shout or walk away. But he doesn’t do either. He just breathes.
“I was thirteen the first time they made me kill,” he says, so quietly I almost don’t hear it.
I don’t blink. I don’t move. I let the weight of it fill the room because anything less would insult the truth he just gave me.
“No boy should be asked to survive what you did,” I say. “And no man should be punished for the armor he built to do it.”
He exhales slowly and finally sits, the chair creaking under his weight.
His elbows go to his knees, hands clasped together, head low. “They all think I like it. That I need the blood. That I wake up craving the next body.”
“And do you?” I ask.
His jaw ticks. “Sometimes. But it’s not about wanting it. It’s about not knowing how to stop it.”
I nod, not because I agree with the violence, but because I understand the rhythm of trauma. The grooves it carves into bone and blood until it becomes a language all its own.
“Then maybe we don’t start by stopping it,” I say. “Maybe we start by understanding what wakes it.”
He looks up at me again. This time, the gold in his eyes is dimmer. Less threat, more question. More wondering whether I might actually be serious.
“You’re not what I expected,” he says finally.
“I get that a lot.”
He doesn’t smile, doesn’t scoff.
He just nods.
Like maybe I can stay.