Anna woke to the faint silver light of the moonlight seeping through the curtains and found Edward sitting beside her, knees drawn close, his body trembling. He was holding her hands so tight her skin tingled, his eyes were rimmed red with tears. The sight of him like this, raw, helpless, pulled at something soft inside her.
"I'm s-sorry, Anna," he whispered, voice cracking. He wouldn't let go.
Then, abruptly, his tone hardened into something raw and desperate. "Do you know what I hate the most?" he asked, voice small and dangerous at once. "When you get scared of me." He swallowed. "You are the only one I have in this world."
Anna sat up, pulse tilting. Despite everything, a corner of her heart still softened for him, she couldn't bear to see him like this. She smoothed her hair, trying to appear composed. The memory of him as a frightened child sat behind her ribs, and it made her gentle.
"I will never hurt you," Edward said, hurriedly, as if insisting on it would make it true. "I can't even think about it. I just… I lost control when you got scared." His fingers tightened around hers until it hurt.
She looked at his face, for a moment it was almost innocent, like a child's. She reached up and cupped his left cheek, forcing a smile that felt like it belonged to someone else. It hurts to give it.
"You were never like this, Edward," she said softly. "You've changed."
"Why are you doing this? Who are you now? Why have you become like this?" Her questions were careful, searching, she needed answers more than accusations.
He swallowed, eyes darkening into something guarded. "I'm doing this for you, Anna," he said. "I never wanted to become like this, but I had no choice." His voice trembled with a history she could not see. "You can't imagine what my life was like. Believe me, Anna, I had no choice."
He leaned forward and gripped her hands, pressing them to his chest as if to prove the truth of his words. "W-will you believe me, Anna?" he asked, and there was an edge to the question that made her skin prickle, a demand, a threat wrapped in pleading.
She felt the question like a pulse against her skin. Fear lingered , not the wide, flaring terror of immediate danger, but a slow, cold dread, the kind that slides under the door and waits. She nodded, a small, nervous motion meant only not to make things worsen.
When he smiled, the expression did not reach his eyes. It was too quick, too clean, the wrong shape for the face of the boy she once knew. There was something jagged in it, a flash of something psychotic that she recognized with a chill.
"I knew you would believe me," he whispered, almost to himself. "I knew."
She watched him closely, cataloguing every twitch and shiver. The room seemed to shrink around them. She swallowed and summoned the courage to ask the question she'd been circling for days.
"Edward," she said, forcing calm into her voice, "who are you? Why did that person call you 'boss'? Are you-- are you part of a mafia or gang?"
He smirked briefly, a look of perverse pride crossing his features as if he had been waiting for her to ask that. "Yes, Anna," he said, as if naming a title he had earned in blood. "I'm the most wanted mafia, the boss they call JN. My identity is hidden. No one knows it's me except my members… and you."
Her breath hitched. "So all the murders, the kidnappings, you did those?"
He had expected her to ask these things someday. He had wanted, desperately, to keep that dark world from her, to shield her innocence. But as he stared at her now, something in him unraveled. He needed her to know. Needed her to understand, or at least let her know his real side.
"Yes, Anna," he said quietly. "I did them. I killed them." He paused, and the confession landed between them like a stone. "They were coming too close to you. They disrespected you, do you remember the taxi driver who tried to touch you after drugging you?"
A thin smile played at the corner of his mouth, not tenderness, but the look of a man comfortable with the finality of his own hands. "I cut ----"
"Please don't tell me what you did with him…" Anna's voice trembled as she spoke, pressing her palms tightly over her ears as if she could block out both his words and the dreadful images clawing at her mind. She didn't want to know, she couldn't bear to know. Her chest rose and fell in uneven breaths. Hatred began to spread inside her, not just for him, but for herself, for sitting there, listening, as if she were still the same naive girl who once trusted him.
Edward's soft chuckle sliced through the silence. There was something disturbingly calm about it, a sound that made her stomach twist. He moved closer, wrapping his arms around her trembling frame as though trying to comfort a child.
"You shouldn't worry about those things," he murmured, his voice low and oddly tender. "I'll take care of everything, okay, Anna?"
His touch was warm, almost gentle, but it burned her skin like a hot iron. She nodded wordlessly, returning the embrace only because her body moved on instinct. Inside, her mind screamed, push him away, run, don't let him near you again.
When he finally released her, the air between them felt heavy, thick with things left unsaid. He gave her a faint smile, the kind that didn't reach his eyes.
"Oh, your clothes are in the cupboard," Edward said casually, as if nothing about this night was wrong. "Take a shower and come out. Dinner is ready."
He kissed her forehead and stepped away, leaving her small and exposed in the quiet room.
Anna forced a smile and nodded. Her lips trembled, but she pressed them shut to keep the tears from spilling out. The room felt suffocating, too quiet, too clean, as if hiding the truth beneath its calm. She turned away before he could notice the way her hands shook. The moment his footsteps faded, she finally exhaled, her breath ragged and uneven, wishing she could wash away everything, his words, his touch, and the haunting question that refused to leave her mind.
The shame came next, fierce and unreasonable, she blamed herself for the deaths, as if guilt could stitch back what had been torn. It sat in her gut like a huge stone, heavy and immovable. She had to get out. The walls felt too close, the air too still. She couldn't stay here. She couldn't breathe in the same room with him and pretend nothing was wrong.
She took a shower with practiced speed, letting the hot water wash at her skin without letting it reach her heart. Steam fogged the mirror, the small, mundane ritual of cleaning herself felt like rehearsal for escape. When she came out, hair was still damp and wrapped in a towel, the sight of him made her stomach twist, he was at the table, placid, hands working to plate their food with an almost domestic calm that belied everything else.
"Come, Anna," Edward said, his voice casual, almost sing song. It was the voice of someone offering comfort it landed wrong in her ears.
She sat opposite him. He began to serve in slow, precise movements, as though each gesture could steady the world. She picked at the food with her eyes long before her hands obeyed. The spoon hovered, then fell back into her bowl. Every instinct told her not to eat from his hand, not to let anything he touched pass her lips, but she had to appear ordinary. She had to look ordinary.
"What's wrong, Anna? It's all your favourite. Why aren't you eating?" he asked, watching her with a softness she didn't trust.
"Let's eat together," she offered, forcing the old, safe ritual between them. She lifted her spoon and, in a motion that used to be tender between friends and lovers and family, she tried to feed him first. He accepted the bite immediately, smiling with his head bowed, a small, private smile that felt like a lock snapping shut.
"You thought… I mixed poison in your food?" he asked suddenly, and the question landed like an unexpected fist.
Her heart tighten. "No… I was just----- we used to do this, Edward. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to---" Her voice trailed, she reached for something familiar to steady herself.
He shook his head, ashamed and apologetic in a flash that confused her. "I'm sorry, Anna. I didn't think--, I thought you didn't trust me yet."
She swallowed the knot forming in her throat and let that slip of an apology become her ladder. She leaned in, smiling for real this time, and seized the opening.
"Do you trust me, Edward?" she asked, keeping her voice level and small.
"Of course I do, Anna. I trust you more than anything," he said without hesitation.
"Then will you let me work?" Her words were careful, wrapped in the urgency of someone asking permission for breathing space.
The smile fell from his face like a mask. He tightened his grip on his glass until white knuckles showed. Suddenly his expression was grave; his eyes sharpened as if hunting for some flaw in her question.
"Do you need anything? You can ask me. Why do you want to work?" He pushed the question at her with the casualness of someone pretending not to worry. He poked his tongue at the roof of his mouth as if thinking, an almost childish tic that suddenly made him look dangerous.
"It's not about need, Edward. It's my work. I can't just leave my responsibility. You know I always wanted to work at an advertising company. You know me, I can't just stop." Her words came out steadier than she felt. She kept her hand on his, placing it over his loosely closed fist as if to anchor him, or herself.
He turned his face away and seemed to be thinking. The pause lengthened, she felt the old clock in the hallway count the seconds like distant footsteps. She squeezed his hand once.
"Don't you trust me…?" she whispered.
His mouth twitched into something like a smile. He looked down at her hand, then up into her eyes. "Do I need to prove my trust to you?"
She let out a small laugh that tasted like ash and nodded. He sighed, a long, slow exhale that shivered through him.
"Okay," Edward said finally. "You can work but----" He lowered his voice almost to a whisper, and the air changed. "If you ever break my trust… the consequences will be very bad."
Her throat tightened, but she nodded. Inside her mind she already had a plan, an outline of exit routes and the names of safe addresses. Tomorrow, she told herself, tomorrow she would put it into motion. She had to be patient, quiet, and careful. She could wait for the right moment.
"By the way, won't he eat?" she asked suddenly, deliberately casual.
"Who?" Edward asked, confusion fluttering across his features as he forked a mouthful of rice.
"The person who came earlier. The one who called you 'boss.'" She kept her tone light, the question a pebble tossed into a still pond to see what ripples it raised.
His head snapped up, the domestic calm snapped into something taut and predatory. "Why?" His gaze cut at her like a warning. There was a hardness there she had rarely seen so nakedly before.
She felt it then , the tilt in his expression that meant she'd stepped into a place he considered his. "Just… asking," she replied almost whispering.
"Anna," he said slowly, and each syllable was careful, dangerous. "You know I don't like it when you give even the slightest attention to someone else. So, if you don't want me to show you my other side…" He let the threat hang, unfinished. His hands kept tightening around her wrist making her feel pain that she can even complaint about.
The words crawled over her skin. She watched him pick up his spoon and hold it as if it gave him something to do with his hands. There was an obsession in his eyes now that reached like a hand. She tried to laugh it off, but the laugh died on her lips.
"Edward, what's wrong with you? I know you like me, but this, you can't control me like this." Her voice was steadier than she felt, it was a small defiance born desperate.
He arched an eyebrow in a mock surprise, and then, with a casual movement that made the room tilt, he picked up a knife from the side and held it like it belonged to him. The blade flashed. Something in his face, an almost clinical calm, made her correct herself on reflex.
"I mean… if you don't like me talking or involving myself with others, I'll not talk." Her words rushed out, clumsy with fear. She pulled her hand back from his.
"Don't even look at them," Edward said, voice low and cold as river water. "Or I'll kill them all, Anna."
To be continued