Page 56 of Veil of Dust

She doesn’t blink.

Doesn’t flinch.

Just watches me rot on the rug, her gaze a weight that pins me in place, stripping me bare.

“Say it,” she hisses, her voice low, venomous, slicing through the music and the rain. “Say what he did. Say what you let happen.”

I swallow hard, my throat tight, the taste of blood sharp on my tongue.

“The Elder trained me,” I say, my voice steady despite the tremor in my chest. “Tore me down to rebuild me in his image. Every deal, every number, every kill. I was a tool. He made me that way.”

She doesn’t move. Her arms stay crossed, her posture rigid, but I see the tension in her shoulders, the way she wraps her fists.

I keep going, the words spilling now, unstoppable.

“Leon wasn’t a mistake,” I say, the admission bitter, burning my throat. “He was an example. A warning. One the Elder thought you needed.”

Her hands twitch, just a little. Not enough to mean she’s moving toward me. Just enough to know she wants to, to hurt or to hold, I can’t tell which.

“You stood next to me at his funeral,” she says, her voice quieter now, but no less heavy, each word a stone dropped between us.

“I did,” I say, meeting her eyes, not hiding from the truth she’s laying bare.

“You held my hand.”

“I know.” The memory cuts, her fingers warm in mine that day, her grief a weight I carried without understanding.

“And all that time you knew?” she demands, her voice rising, cracking at the edges with pain she can’t contain.

“No,” I say, firm, desperate for her to hear it. “Not then.”

“Don’t,” she says, voice sharp, a blade aimed at my heart. “Don’t lie to me again.”

I look her dead in the eyes, letting her see the rawness there, the truth I’ve got no shield for.

“I saw the file three weeks after he was gone. After I’d buried the last of my loyalty in a field behind a false address. By then, it was too late,” I say, my voice breaking just enough to betray me.

She stares down at me. Breathing steadily. Controlled. But her eyes burn, searching mine for something to hold onto, something to trust.

“You could’ve warned me,” she says, her voice softer now, but heavy with accusation.

“I didn’t know how,” I whisper, the confession slipping out, fragile and honest. “I thought if I got out from under him, if I cut him off—”

“You thought hiding the truth would save you,” she cuts in, her words precise, each one landing like a blow. “But it only cost me.”

“I’m not him,” I say, my voice low, pleading, needing her to see the difference, to see me.

She kneels now, not close, not touching, just low enough to meet my eyes, her face inches from mine, her breath warm in the cold air.

“You carry his name in your ledger,” she says, her voice steady, cutting deeper than her fist ever could. “His blood in your rules. His voice in your orders.”

I close my eyes, just for a second, the weight of her words crushing me. The Elder’s shadow looms, his lessons etched into my bones, but I’ve fought to break free, to be more than his creation.

“He made me into this,” I say, opening my eyes, meeting hers. “But I’ve been trying every day since to break it.”

Her fingers curl against the floor, nails scraping the rug. She’s not crying. But she’s breaking in a way I can feel, a fracture that mirrors my own.

“I loved you,” she says, the past tense a knife twisting in my chest. “And you let me love you with a lie living between us.”

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