“I mean it,” he continued, his voice steady, lacking the edge I expected. “What happened… shouldn’t have happened.”
I watched his face closely, searching for the usual signs… mockery, manipulation, anything that would confirm this was just another game.
But there was none of that. His posture was different, too. Less rigid. Less… dominant.
It was subtle, but it was there.
“They acted because of me,” he admitted after a brief pause. “Even if I didn’t tell them to do it directly… I know that.”
That caught me off guard more than the apology itself. Because it wasn’t deflection. It wasn’t denial.
It was acknowledgment.
“I should’ve stopped it before it got that far,” he added. “I didn’t. That’s on me.”
Silence stretched between us again. I didn’t respond right away. Because part of me
