Naiara couldn't remember the last time she had breathed this deeply.
Her mother's arms were around her, warm and trembling, and for a long moment the world shrank to that single embrace, the one she had feared would never happen again.
When they finally pulled apart, just enough to look at each other, Naiara's mother cupped her face in her hands.
"You're safe," she whispered. "You're safe, my love."
Naiara swallowed hard.
Safe.
The word didn't belong in that house… Not with him walking its corridors, haunting her thoughts, heating her blood, and confusing every instinct she'd ever trusted. But she didn't say anything. She didn't want to break the moment. Her mother, however, did.
Naiara watched her scan the room, the guards, the elegant walls, the impossible contrast between danger and luxury and then the woman's smile cracked.
"Naiara… you need to know the truth."
Naiara's heart clenched. "About what?"
Her mother hesitated, lowering her gaze as if the words themselves were too heavy to hold. "Your father," she whispered at last. "Miguel… he wanted me dead."
The breath left Naiara's lungs. "You? What are you talking about?"
"He tried to silence me. Years ago. When I found out things I wasn't supposed to know. He thought I'd talk. He preferred the idea of eliminating me rather than risking his business."
The world tilted beneath her feet.
"And… what about me?" she asked in a trembling voice.
Her mother's eyes flickered with something between pain and shame. "He never cared for anything but money. You were… a bargaining chip. A way to close deals he couldn't handle alone."
The words cut deeper than the scar carved across Naiara's abdomen.
She clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms. She wanted to scream, she wanted to run, she wanted… No. She refused to let his name enter that moment.
Her mother studied her. "There's something you're not telling me," she murmured softly.
Naiara shook her head too fast. "No. Nothing." But inside… Inside she was chaos, desire, fear, curiosity, shame.
A dark pull she couldn't name, couldn't confess, couldn't kill. Because how could she ever explain what the Grey Man had done to her?
How he had stripped her defenses away with honesty brutal enough to burn?
How he looked at her, not like a victim, not like a job but like someone dangerous, powerful… unforgettable?
How could she admit that the monster holding her captive had become the only person who had ever made her feel truly seen?
She swallowed the confession whole and forced her voice to steady.
"Mom… are you okay? Did they hurt you?"
Her mother surprised her with a soft smile.
"No, my love. Quite the opposite. He treated me well."
Naiara blinked. "He… who?"
"The man with the grey eyes."
A violent shiver climbed her spine. Her pulse hammered painfully. Grey eyes.
Her mother tilted her head, narrowing her gaze as if piecing together a distant memory.
"There's something familiar about him," she said. "I feel like I've seen those eyes before, a long time ago… when you were very little. But I can't place where."
Naiara stopped breathing. Her entire body tightened, as if an invisible hand had wrapped around her ribs. She tried to speak, to ask how, when, where but the words died on her tongue, because across the room… In the deepest shadow… He was watching.
The Grey Man: unmoving, unblinking, silent as a storm waiting for permission to strike.
The faint glow of a lamp caught the edges of him: the sharp jaw, the dark blond hair still damp from his shower, the stillness of a predator who didn't need to move to dominate a room.
His eyes, those merciless grey eyes, were fixed on her.
Cold, burning, possessive, conflicted.
He watched Naiara hold her mother, watched the tremble in her hands, watched the fragile strength in her back, the storm in her posture, the pain she was trying desperately to hide and something inside him shifted.
He hated it. Hated that she could touch a part of him he believed long dead, hated the burn in his chest, the ache behind his ribs, the unfamiliar pressure in his throat.
An emotion he didn't recognize. One he didn't want but it was there. Alive. Violent.
She was a weakness he could not afford, a weakness wearing tears, scars, and a heartbeat he could hear even from across the room.
Neither Naiara nor her mother noticed him, but if Naiara had turned just a little, if she had followed the electricity crawling up her spine, she would have seen: his hands tense at his sides, his jaw clench, his breath hitch ever so slightly when she smiled at her mother.
A smile he had not earned, a smile he hated not to own.
She whispered something into her mother's hair. He couldn't hear it but he saw her lips move and that alone was enough to hurt.
His eyes darkened.
He didn't want to hurt her, not truly, not anymore, because hurting her now, felt like hurting himself and that was unacceptable.
He stepped back, silently, without leaving a trace. Neither of them noticed him slip away but as he walked down the corridor, that one violent thought pulsed behind his temples:
She will choose me. Even if it destroys her.
Even if it destroys me.