I nod weakly. “I think I’ll lie down for a while.”
As he leaves, I sink onto the edge of the bed, a new, secret energy thrumming beneath my exhaustion. I’ve managed one small act of rebellion, one that has yielded a tangible mystery. It’s not freedom, but it’s something far more valuable: a potential key.
I curl onto my side, my mind racing. The hunt for an escape has been replaced by a new, more urgent quest: What’s inside Nico’s secret box, and how can I get him to open it for me?
I wake with a start,disoriented. The quality of light has changed—afternoon sun slants through the windows. I must have slept for hours. Pushing myself up, I scan the room, half-expecting to find Nico looming in a corner. The space is empty. The house is unnervingly quiet.
Later, as evening settles, I’m curled in an armchair in the great room, pretending to read, when I hear the sound of his car on the gravel drive. My entire body tenses. He’s back from Vancouver.
He enters the room without a word, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it onto a chair. He looks tired, the lines around his eyes deeper than I remember. He moves to the bar to pour a whiskey, his back to me.
“I trust Blake saw to your needs,” he says, his voice flat.
“He was very... attentive,” I reply carefully.
He turns, his dark eyes finally landing on me. The silence stretches, thick with the memory of last night's violence and the strange mercy that followed. I know I need to break it, to push past the fear and find the man who faltered. This is my chance.
“Last night,” I begin, my voice softer than I intend, “when you stopped... you said something. About the sound I made.”
His posture goes rigid, his hand tightening around his glass. He doesn't want to have this conversation. “What about it?” he says, his voice flat and cold.
“You said it reminded you of your mother,” I press gently, watching his face. “That's why you stopped.”
He turns away, presenting his back to me again, a wall of tailored fabric. “It was a miscalculation. Forget it.”
“I can’t,” I say. “It's just... Alessandro mentioned what happened to your parents. He told me you were there, that you saw it.”Nico turns back, his eyes pinning me with an intensity that is cold as ice. “He said they'd be proud of the man you've become.”
Nico's hand tightens around his glass. “Alessandro talks too much.”
“He told me you were there,” I press gently, my heart starting to pound. “When they were killed. He said you saw it.”
He turns his head slowly, his eyes pinning me with an intensity that is cold as ice, a clear warning. I ignore it.
“I just... I want to understand,” I say, letting my voice fill with a genuine vulnerability I don't have to fake. “The man who punished me on the yacht... and the man who stopped when I cried. They can't be the same person. Unless…”
“Unless what?” he prompts, his voice dangerously quiet.
“Unless the first man was created to protect the second one from ever having to feel what he felt that night.”
The mask of The Diplomat slips entirely. I see something raw and unguarded in his eyes—the ghost of a broken boy. Without a word, he sets down his drink, walks to his bedroom, and returns with the small metal box. He places it on the table between us and presses his thumb to an invisible sensor. It opens with a soft hiss.
“You want to understand?” he says, his voice rough. “Fine. Look.”
I lean forward. Inside, on worn black velvet, are two items: a delicate, dented silver locket and a heavy gold signet ring, its band crudely cut at the bottom.
Nico picks up the locket. “My mother’s,” he says, his voice devoid of emotion as he opens it to reveal two tiny, smiling photos. “She was wearing this the night they were killed.”
He sets it down, his fingers now brushing the ring. “I was fourteen,” he says, staring into the fire. “I heard my mother screaming. By the time I got downstairs... I saw the knife in his hand. The man wearing this ring was standing over her. After he sliced her throat, he looked up and saw me on the stairs. He smiled—a look of pure satisfaction—then casually wiped my mother’s blood from his blade on his pants. He didn’t touch me. He simply left me standing there with my parents lying dead in a pool of their own blood.”
A sob is caught in my throat.
“Alessandro found me,” Nico continues, his voice a flat monotone. “For the next two years, he taught me everything: how to track, how to fight, how to kill. On my sixteenth birthday, we found him. Alessandro's men took care of his crew, but he left the leader for me. It was my first kill. I took this ring from his finger myself.”
He falls silent. He has just handed me the origin story of the monster. His violence, his control, his coldness—all forged in the fire of that single, horrific night. My anger and betrayal crumble, replaced by a wave of profound, aching empathy.
Slowly, I reach across the table. My fingers bypass the locket and touch the brutal edge of the ring. Then I slide my hand over to cover his. He flinches but doesn't pull away. He expected horror, not acceptance.
In the quiet firelight, the power dynamics and the lies fall away. He has shown me the deepest, ugliest part of his soul, and I have not run.
