Naiara no longer knew how long they had been there.
Sitting in the same room, breathing the same air, wrapped in the same heavy silence.
She knew only one thing. One single, terrible certainty. He didn't lie.
That cold man, elegant, with eyes like ice that knew how to burn… He hadn't lied to her once.
Every word he had slid beneath her skin had been true.
Leo had deceived her.
Damian had deceived her.
Her father… wasn't even worth discussing.
He hadn't. And that realization hit her like a sentence.
"You're thinking too loudly, little strawberry."
The Gray Man's voice snapped her thoughts in half. He was still sitting in the armchair, the back slightly reclined, his fingers laced before his lips.
He studied her without shame, as if every micro-expression were a clue to catalog.
"Does it bother you?" she shot back, her sarcasm weaker than she wished.
He allowed the ghost of a smile. "No. It amuses me."
She clenched her jaw. "Everything amuses you, doesn't it? Even watching how they…"
she exhaled sharply, as if saying their names were painful, "Leo and Damian… broke me."
"They shattered you," he corrected, calm. "I'm merely removing the veil."
He stood with a slow, almost lazy movement. Every step he took toward her felt calculated, controlled, as if even distance were a tool for torment.
Naiara felt her heartbeat kick faster. Fear. Anger. And something else she refused to name.
"Why…" she swallowed, forcing the words out, "why are you honest only with me? Why me?"
He stopped with his breath brushing hers, close enough for her to count the tiny shadows of his lashes.
His gray eyes were steady, lucid, impossible to decipher.
"Because you're useless to me buried under fairy tales," he said. "I don't want you naive. I don't want you blind. I want you sharp. Aware. If I'm going to take you, I want who you are, not who you pretend to be."
The words ran under her skin like a reversed shiver. No tenderness, but a twisted form of respect. One that hurt even more.
"You don't own me," she murmured, refusing to step back. "Not yet."
A flicker of pleasure lit his eyes.
"No," he confirmed. "Not yet. And that is precisely why you're fascinating."
She inhaled slowly. She had to do something. She had to stop being the target.
Clara would have screamed in her skull if she had been there.
Play. Don't freeze. Use what you have.
The thought terrified her. Because the only thing she had in that room was herself.
"Tell me everything," she said suddenly.
He raised an eyebrow. "About what?"
"About you."
The words escaped before she could stop them.
A different silence dropped between them.
Not the void between predator and prey, but the crackling quiet of a battlefield opening.
The Gray Man watched her for a long time.
"Trying to play with me, little strawberry?"
"I'm trying to survive," she said, locking eyes with him. And for a moment… he seemed genuinely struck.
"There isn't much to say about me," he said, glancing toward the window where the sea was only a distant smear. "I am what you see."
"A monster," she shot back, without hesitation.
"Yes." He said it with no defense, no excuse.
"A monster who doesn't hide behind a tragic backstory or a complicated childhood.
I'm not that interesting, I'm sorry to disappoint you."
She studied him, searching for a crack. A fracture. Anything.
"Aren't you afraid of anything?" she asked.
This time, when he looked at her, there was a shadow in his eyes she had never seen.
"I fear people who lie to themselves," he said softly. "They're dangerous. Because they don't even know what they want. Like you."
"Me?"
"You hate me, but you trust what I say.
My hands disgust you, yet you didn't pull away when I held you.
You claim you despise me, but you're the one asking who I am."
He stepped closer. Their knees almost brushed.
"Tell me, Naiara," he whispered. "When was the last time someone made you feel so alive you wanted to hate them for it?"
Her heart detonated in her chest.
"You don't make me feel alive," she pushed out. "You make me feel… in danger."
"It's the same thing," he said without pause. "You were simply never taught that."
She wanted to slap him. Her hands were trembling too much.
"If you really never lie," she whispered, her voice cracking, "then tell me why you didn't let me die. If I'm just a game to you… a distraction… why didn't you let them sell me in pieces?"
The Gray Man fell silent. For the first time, the silence felt forced, not chosen.
When he spoke, it was without a smile.
His voice was lower, rougher, as if something inside him scraped against bone.
"Because when I saw you," he said, "I knew I would never let anyone extinguish you without you first knowing who you truly are.
Do not confuse this with tenderness," he added immediately. "I don't save. I take."
She stared at him, at the impossible contradiction in front of her.
The man pushing her to the edge of an abyss.
And the one keeping her from falling.
"I hate you," she said, but it didn't sound like an insult. It sounded like a confession.
He gave a half-smile.
"You're insane," he murmured. "That's why you don't bore me."
Something shifted inside her. A line blurring.
If she wanted to survive, she had to understand his game. Maybe… twist it.
"Fine," she breathed. "Let's play."
He arched an eyebrow. "I'm listening."
"You say you want everything," she continued. "My body. My mind. My thoughts.
If you want all of that… then give me something in return."
"You're not in a position to negotiate."
"You're wrong. If you want me to yield, crushing me won't work. Anyone can do that.
You're not 'anyone.' You want to be the only one. Then show me something the others never saw."
He stared at her for long seconds, and then, unbelievably, he laughed.
A low, incredulous, almost delighted laugh.
"You want something the others never had," he summarized. "Something of mine."
"The truth," she said. "About you. About what you want. About what you'll do to me.
And what you'll do to them."
His eyes gleamed at that them.
"What I'll do to you," he murmured, "I've already told you. I want everything, and I'll take it. What I'll do to them…" he tasted the pause, "depends very much on you."
"On me?"
"You're their line of fire, Naiara. They've already been willing to lose everything for you. You have no idea, no idea at all, how powerful you are in my hands."
"I don't want to be a weapon."
"You already are."
She stood. He didn't move.
"And if I choose not to play?" she whispered.
"If I decide not to give in, to you or to them?"
"Then you'd be the closest thing to freedom I've ever seen. And I still wouldn't let you go."
A shiver climbed her spine.
"Are you afraid?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Of me?"
She hesitated. Then shook her head.
"I'm afraid of myself. Of what I might do to survive. Of what I might… feel."
He looked away. Then touched her jawline lightly, so slowly it felt like a test.
"Remember what I'm telling you," he said softly. "I won't break you with pain.
I'll break you with honesty. Until you can't tell where your hate ends… and something else begins."
Something else. The words destabilized her knees.
"And them?" she asked. "Leo and… Damian."
His smile returned, without triumph, without warmth.
"They're coming, you know? Not today.
Not tomorrow. But soon."
Naiara froze.
"What do you mean… soon?"
"I mean the world you know is about to collapse into a single point. This island.
This house. This room."
He stepped closer.
"And when they get here," he added, "I'll give you a gift."
"A… gift?"
"The choice."
"What choice?"
"Whom you want to stand with. Who gets to touch you. Who gets to keep you. Who you want to fight for you."
She shook her head, trembling.
"I will never choose you."
A slow smile: dangerous, confident, devastating.
"Oh, little strawberry… you think you know that. But you don't know yourself yet.
And I haven't even begun to play."
He moved toward the door.
"Rest," he said. "Soon… the real game begins."
The door closed softly behind him. And Naiara remained alone, crushed by a single, suffocating truth: When the moment came…
she no longer knew who she wanted to be saved by. Or who she wanted to belong to.