This Is Not Grace. - Ch.12.

They never call it what it is.

It's "clean-up," "containment," "closure." Words rinsed in formality and polished with plausible deniability. Words that fit in leather folders and white hallways, words Emiliano says with a flick of his pen like he's assigning me to pick up flowers, not fractures.

I told myself I was done with this. With them. With what they make me become. But the file came anyway, slipped beneath my espresso like an afterthought. No words. Just a name, a time, a locked basement.

And the password we needed.

I told Margo I'd be back before noon. She didn't ask where I was going. She never does. She just adjusted my coat collar with that crisp efficiency of hers and said, "Don't bleed on the sweater."

It's almost funny. I never do.

The cellar was colder than I remembered. Not this cellar specifically—just the type. Damp stone, unpainted walls, lightbulbs that flickered with the mood of the generator upstairs. It smelled like decay preserved in formality, like grief in a tuxedo.

He sat tied to a chair in the middle of it. Ankles, wrists, torso—every axis of resistance neutralized. A man once, now folded into bruises. His eye was swollen shut. His lip looked like it had tried to escape and failed.

I crossed the room slowly. Measured steps. My shoes made no sound against the old concrete. That detail bothered me more than it should have.

"You locked the Mursik files," I said.

He didn't respond, unless blood crusting at the corner of his mouth counted.

I pulled the stool forward and sat. He watched me with what was left of his vision. There was no fear in it. That would have made this easier. No, there was defiance—a slow, deliberate kind that didn't burn hot but smoldered cold. He was prepared to die on his own hill, and we'd paved over it weeks ago.

"I don't like hurting people," I told him. The words tasted like old iron. "It's not a trick. I mean it."

His silence agreed with none of it. I inhaled sharply. Closed my eyes for a second too long.

I see a child. Always a child. Doesn't matter how old the man in front of me is—I always imagine them small once. On a swing. Holding crayons. Being told a bedtime story no one meant.

I hate this part of me. The part that still feels. That remembers.

"You can stop this."

Still nothing.

The silence between us thickened, coagulated into something almost solid. He didn't speak, didn't move, didn't even pretend to care that I was here. His gaze hovered just past my shoulder, somewhere above my head. Detached. Trained. Like he'd practiced this. Like he'd prepared himself to become furniture.

I hated that look. Hated how effective it was.

"You've already been beaten," I said, my voice steady, falsely calm. "Clearly not enough. Or maybe just not the right kind."

Still nothing. His lips were split, but he managed a smirk. The corner of his mouth twitched like a challenge.

I leaned in, elbows to knees, face close enough to feel the dampness of his breath when he exhaled. Close enough to smell the copper on it.

"You don't know me," I whispered. "You think this ends with you in a body bag and me walking away clean? You think I'll lose sleep?"

A pause. A flicker in his eye—was that a blink or defiance sharpening?

"Let me offer you something. You tell me the password. I walk out. You keep your teeth. You piss blood for a few days and that's that. You don't tell me—"

I reached forward and pressed a gloved thumb against his swollen cheekbone, not hard, just enough.

"—and I take you apart one inch at a time."

He laughed then. It cracked in his throat like it wasn't meant to exist. A wet, ragged bark of a sound. "You're not like the others," he rasped. "You're slower. Fancier. Think if you say it soft enough, it isn't torture."

I stared at him. At the face in front of me, half-collapsed but still goddamn proud. I hated men like him. Not for what they did—but for how much of myself I saw in them when they refused to break.

I raised my hand and struck him across the face. A clean, echoing slap. He didn't cry out. Just blinked at the floor and reset his jaw.

Another slap—faster, sharper. My palm burned. He smiled wider.

"Feel better?" he coughed.

My fist curled before I told it to.

The first punch landed on the edge of his cheekbone. I felt it vibrate through my wrist. The second—lower, across the jaw—sent spit and blood splattering against his shoulder.

Still, he didn't scream. That made it worse.

I hit him again. And again.

His head snapped back, then forward. A trickle of blood escaped from his nose and hung for a moment before dripping onto the stone floor between us.

With every blow, I heard less of him and more of myself. The sound of knuckles against flesh blurred into the soundtrack of memory: a younger me, desperate to make something of himself, breaking piece by piece into what they needed. Not noble. Not fearless. Just useful.

I stopped only when my breath turned shallow, and my hands trembled—not from exhaustion, but from the unbearable familiarity of it all.

He coughed. Thick, wet. His eyes fluttered like he might fall forward, but he didn't.

"Still not enough?" I asked, voice hoarse.

He looked up slowly, blood webbing from the corner of his mouth to his chin. "You really hate this, don't you?" he said. "That's why it works."

That… gutted me.

Because he was right.

Because I wanted to be the kind of man who left bruises only on spreadsheets and signatures, not on skin. Because I told myself that I wore fine sweaters and said 'please' and 'thank you' so I wouldn't have to raise my voice, let alone my hands. Because the ugliest part of me—the part that still remembered how to hurt—never really left.

I reached down and grabbed his jaw, fingers digging into the bone. "The password."

He wheezed a string of numbers. Seven digits, one stammered. I repeated them under my breath, once.

He fell slack in the chair.

I let go.

My fists ached. Not from the pain. From what they proved: that I never stopped being exactly what Emiliano made me.

I left without speaking.

The air outside hit me like a joke. Bright. Clean. The kind of clean that didn't belong near anything like that room. I walked until I couldn't hear the door creak shut behind me. Until the echo of my name—don't go soft, Lucien—stopped ringing like a wound.

I don't remember the car ride. Just the smell of my gloves. Leather and salt.

By the time I reached my apartment, the silence felt surgical. Designed. My place was too still. No ticking clock, no shoes out of place. Just reflections in glass. I went straight to the bathroom.

The light above the mirror was too bright. Unflattering. Honest.

I peeled off the gloves and placed them on the edge of the sink like they might crumble. My knuckles were scraped. Just enough. Not dramatic. Just raw.

I turned the tap on and held my hands under the water. Watched it turn from clear to pink, and back again.

But it wasn't blood I was scrubbing. It never was.

It was the look in his eyes when he said you really hate this.

It was the way my hands moved faster after that, not slower.

I reached for the soap and scrubbed like I could erase it. Like guilt was an ink stain. My nails dragged across my palms hard enough to sting. I kept going. Harder. The water splashed up the mirror and down the sleeves of my sweater.

I didn't stop. Not until my skin went red and my wrists shook.

There was no crying. That's not how it worked. The sadness was too thick to be shed. It settled behind my ribs and made a home there.

I looked up.

There I was—Lucien D. Ivarelle, charming prince of a nowhere kingdom. Clean face. Perfect sweater. Bloodless.

I could walk into a boardroom like this. I could pour wine. I could kiss someone and they wouldn't know.

Except Reed would know. He always looked too closely. Like he was cataloging the lies behind the linen.

And the truth was, if there was one person in the world I wanted to see in that moment, it wasn't him.

It was his grandmother.

I didn't know what startled me more—the thought of her, or the comfort it brought.

That house. That mismatched sofa. The smell of lemon cleaner and ginger tea. The way she had smiled at me like she knew I was pretending, and forgave it anyway.

She'd laughed at my name. She'd asked if I wanted butter or jam like it mattered. No one had spoken to me like that in years. Not since before I built this kingdom of mirrors.

She made me feel small in a good way.

Like someone's child.

And now, in this echoing marble box I lived in—walls too white, silence too sharp—I would've given anything for her to walk in and say, "Darling, you look tired. Sit. I'll make you something warm."

Because I was tired. Because I hadn't been warm in months. Because I didn't want to be Lucien right now.

I wanted to be Rowan. And I wanted someone to let that be enough.

I didn't plan it.

Not really. It wasn't part of some calculated script or crisis control strategy. There was no pretense drafted in my notes app, no carefully worded message prepared for Margo to send on my behalf. I just… ended up there.

With a brown paper bag of grilled chicken, steamed vegetables, and a variety of salads I didn't even read the names of. I bought everything that screamed low sodium and inoffensive. I didn't know if she had dietary restrictions. Or allergies. Or if she even liked chicken.

But it felt safer than wine.

I rang the bell before I could change my mind.

The door opened almost immediately, like she'd been waiting.

"Well, this is a surprise," she said, smiling with her entire face. "Are you lost, or just underfed?"

"I come bearing leafy offerings," I replied, holding the bag up like an awkward tribute. "And, no, I'm not lost. I just... thought I'd check in."

She tilted her head at me with that expression I now recognized as part curiosity, part X-ray. "Come in, then. Let's see what you've dragged in."

We ate in the kitchen. She insisted. Said the dining room was for "funerals and Christmas." There was a warmth to the space that I couldn't name—something about the chipped floral dishes, the off-brand dish soap, the smell of thyme and detergent woven into the curtains.

I laid the food out on the table like an apology. She examined the containers as if I'd brought alien relics.

"Grilled chicken," she said, lifting a lid with one eyebrow raised. "A man of mystery and nutrition. Color me intrigued."

"I didn't know what you liked," I said. "Thought I'd play it safe."

"You look like someone who's never played it safe a day in his life."

She said it lightly, but it landed too precisely. I smiled—thin, but real.

We ate slowly. She spoke more than I did, telling me about her neighbor's dog, a home remedy for cold feet, something Reed did when he was eight that involved a police call. I nodded when needed, laughed when appropriate. I drank water with tiny, polite sips like I wasn't a man who had scrubbed blood off his hands just hours before.

And for a moment, I felt almost… still.

Until the door slammed open.

It wasn't a knock. It was a burst—an urgent, uncontrolled entrance.

Reed.

He stepped inside, hair messy, eyes wide, mouth open like he had just run a mile and couldn't find the brakes.

I stood slowly.

He froze.

His eyes snapped between me and his grandmother, then the food on the table. His fists were clenched at his sides. There was something fragile in the way his chest moved—fast and uneven. Like panic barely kept in check.

And I understood immediately.

He thought I came to threaten her. Harm her.

Of course he did.

The realization made my stomach drop in a way no punch ever had. It made me feel monstrous, even if I wasn't. Even if I hadn't.

His grandmother spoke before I could.

"Oh, hush. Sit down, Reed," she said, waving her hand like she was brushing dust off a windowsill. "He brought me dinner."

Reed blinked. "What?"

"He brought me grilled chicken and enough salad to feed a yoga cult," she added. "You're welcome to join, though you're already late."

Reed's eyes didn't leave me. I didn't move.

After a beat, he stepped inside and slid into the chair across from me. His posture was stiff. His jaw clenched.

He didn't touch the food.

"I'm not hungry," he muttered.

"Don't be dramatic. You look like you haven't eaten all day," his grandmother replied sharply, already scooping salad onto his plate. "And don't make me threaten you."

Reed gave a small, reluctant snort. But still, he didn't look at me.

He started eating after the third bite was placed on his plate.

The silence between us wasn't comfortable, but it was tolerable. Tense, but not explosive.

I focused on my fork, my food, the sound of her humming in the background as she put the kettle on.

And I wondered if this was the closest I would ever get to feeling like a person again.

"You two wait in the balcony, I'll make some tea and follow you," his grandmother said, already rising from her chair. "It'll take around ten minutes."

I nodded and moved first, grateful for the pause, the excuse to step away before I gave myself away. The moment I crossed the threshold into the narrow little balcony, I reached for my lighter, the habit slipping in before reason.

As expected, Reed followed. Quickly. Too quickly.

He shut the door behind him with a quiet snap. Then leaned against the railing, looking down at the street like it could ground him. Like if he stared hard enough, he'd remember what normal looked like.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" he said. His voice was low, bitter, like he was holding it back through his teeth.

I lit the cigarette. The flame trembled for a second in the breeze. "Thought I'd come say hi to Grandma."

"Don't fuck with me, Lucien." He turned toward me fully now, his arms tense at his sides. His face matched his voice—cut sharp and fraying at the edges.

"I swear," I said, exhaling a slow stream of smoke. "I'm not fucking with you. I really came to see her. Sit with her for a bit. How did you know?"

He gave me a look that answered itself. "How do you think I knew? She texted me!"

I swallowed, throat dry. "Was she scared?"

"No, you idiot," he snapped, his voice cracking just slightly. "She thought something happened to me. Or that we fought. She's dealing with this like we're married already."

I let out a short breath, almost a laugh. "I won't harm your grandmother, Reed. Don't be stupid."

"I already told you," he said, stepping in closer, his tone shifting from warning to something more feral, "my grandmother is where I draw the line, Lucien."

His eyes were wild now, not angry, just blazing with the kind of protectiveness that had no off switch. "I know I seem naïve. Too soft. Too stupid for my own good—believe me, I've heard worse. But I'm not walking blind. I'm choosing where I'm stepping. And you—" his voice dropped, "you're stepping where you shouldn't."

I stared at him. My pulse loud in my ears. He was right. Every step I took near him was a trespass. I knew it, and I kept doing it anyway.

"I respected your mystique," he said. "Your fucking boundaries. I never pushed past what made you uncomfortable."

My chest ached. It wasn't guilt, not quite. Not yet. Just the echo of something that used to be a heart.

I asked before I could stop myself. "Is there any part of you that's willing to take me in? Any?"

He blinked, the anger briefly short-circuiting. "What are you even talking about, Lucien?"

I shook my head. I didn't know either. I just knew I was cracking apart.

"Can I have a hug, Reed?"

He recoiled like I'd slapped him. "You're completely out of your mind."

I couldn't hold the weight of myself anymore.

Not the polished language. Not the posture. Not the thin layer of grace I'd worn like lacquer over rot.

I flicked the cigarette over the railing—it cut through the air in a tiny arc of orange and vanished into the night like it had never meant anything. Like it had never burned.

Then I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him. I just—folded.

Into him.

And for a few seconds, it was like hugging a marble statue. Cold, rigid, disbelieving. His body locked beneath my grip, refusing to react, like even his skin was holding its breath. He didn't flinch. Didn't push me off.

But he didn't pull me in either.

I pressed closer anyway, burying my face in the space between his shoulder and neck. His hoodie was soft—lived-in and slightly warm from his skin underneath. He smelled like soap. Not designer, not perfumed. Just… clean. Honest. Like a home I was never allowed in, but passed by too many times. And I hated how much I wanted it.

His breath hitched. I felt it. Right there, against my chest—like his body wasn't sure if it was supposed to exhale or brace for impact. His arms stayed at his sides, knuckles clenched, shoulders drawn.

He was unraveling. Silently. Rigidly.

And I was falling apart in the open.

I didn't say anything. I couldn't. My throat burned like I'd swallowed glass. My heart felt too exposed, like it had teeth marks all over it. I just held on. Tighter.

I knew I wasn't owed this. Not this closeness. Not this mercy.

But then… something shifted.

Reed's hands lifted—hesitant, like he was afraid touching me might curse him—and landed on my back. Light. Testing.

Then firmer.

His body softened, spine curling just slightly inward as he gave in. Not all the way. But enough. Enough to steady me. Enough to say, fine. Just this once.

I closed my eyes and clung to him like he was the last steady thing left in a world that was constantly redrawing itself.

He didn't whisper forgiveness. He didn't ask me what the hell was wrong. He just let me stay.

And sometimes, that's the most violent kind of kindness. Because it breaks you exactly where you've been trying not to look.