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“And maybe I’d believe that if you didn’t say it with a shit tonne of sarcasm.” Leo sighed. “As for bored… Nope, I don’t buy that either. You weren’t bored when you gave me Bessie, either.”
I eyed the door behind him. “Are we done here?”
“Not quite.” Leo’s lips pursed as he studied me intently. “What are your intentions with Matty?”
“Same as they’ve always been,” I said wearily, my veneer slipping with every second I spent being scrutinised. That was the thing with behaving like an arsehole—people didn’t want to look closely for too long. But Leo was more like Matty than I’d realised. He was determined to see something more to me. It made it harder to pretend. “I want him safe and happy. That’s all.”
“Happy with you?”
I shook my head sharply. “No. Of course not. He could never be happy with me, Leo. I’m a murderer. An assassin. I have no friends and one relative who barely tolerates me. My life is not one I want for Matty.”
“That we can agree on,” Leo muttered. “Matty though…he seems attached to you.”
“He’s been through something traumatic. It’ll pass.”
“No, I don’t think it will. You don’t know Matty like I do. Once he sets his mind on something, he doesn’t stop until he gets it.”
Goosebumps rose on my skin, but I didn’t say anything.
Leo took a deep breath, fixing me with a steady glare. “Right, this is going to go one of two ways. The first option is you see where this thing goes with Matty. You swear to me you’ll protect him with your life. And most importantly, you vow to never break his heart. You’ll spend your days making him happy and giving him whatever he needs.”
My temper spiked. “You aren’t the one who has the right to ask that of me.”
“I’ve gotta protect Matty, Sebastian. Even if that means protecting him from himself. So, can you promise that? Can you guarantee you won’t walk away from this and leave him with a broken heart?”
Fuck, how I wished I could give Leo a different answer. Maybe the Sebastian I once was would’ve been good enough for Matty. He could’ve guaranteed he would never break Matty’s heart, that he could commit everything in him to giving Matty the best possible life, full of all the joy he deserved.
But that Sebastian had died a long time ago. Bled to death alongside his family.
The monster who’d risen in his place wasn’t worthy of anything good.
“No,” I said finally. “I can’t promise that.”
A muscle in Leo’s jaw jumped, his fists clenching like he was trying not to hit me.
Couldn’t blame him, if I was being honest. I felt the same way about myself every damned day.
“We do the second option then.”
Exhaustion was weighing down on me so heavily that it was hard to meet Leo’s glare. “What’s that?”
“You stay until Matty is healed and back to his normal self. He’s asking for you. I’m not going to make you leave when he needs you this much.”
I closed my eyes, feeling like my whole self was being torn in two. One half of me wanted to bolt to Matty’s room to put myself at his service, while the other half wanted to flee the flat entirely. The whole fucking country, actually. Accepting that Matty would never be mine was the right decision.
That didn’t mean I had to like it.
“Then what?”
“Then you leave,” Leo said simply. “You vanish from his life like you never existed. And you do it soon, before he gets even more…attached.”
I nodded curtly. Now that I could do.
Hopefully.
I pushed past Leo, ready to get out of there and back to Matty. While I still could. My hand was on the doorknob when Leo’s quiet voice stopped me.
“Oh, and Sebastian?”
