Leo didn't need to be told twice.
With a pathetic, strangled whimper, he scrambled backward on his hands and knees, crab-walking away from us as fast as his trembling limbs would carry him. He didn't look back at me. He didn't offer a word of protest about his suddenly canceled engagement. The coward simply dissolved into the shadows of the service corridor, entirely consumed by his own survival instinct.
I watched him go, feeling a strange, hollow emptiness in my chest where outrage should have been. Five years. I had spent five years pretending that man was my sanctuary, only to realize the harbor had always been built on quicksand.
Dante lowered his gun, sliding the still-warm weapon smoothly into the holster at the small of his back.
Without a word, he turned to me. The violence th
