Kairo's stare was sharp enough to carve through steel. The way he leaned forward, elbows braced against his knees, voice low and steady, made Eli's throat tighten like a noose.
"You parade yourself as an influencer. A beauty vlogger." His tone wasn't mocking, wasn't even cruel—it was worse. Just a flat statement of fact, clinical and undeniable. "Thousands follow you. Tens of thousands, maybe more. Do you know what that means?"
Eli blinked, his brain short-circuiting under the weight of that gaze. His mouth moved before he could think better of it. "…It means I'm pretty?"
It was the first thing that came to mind, maybe because his brain was an absolute mess right now.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Kairo's black eyes narrowed into slits, his jaw flexing once, twice, like he was actively deciding whether or not to strangle him then and there.
