The night air was cool, heavy with the scent of rain that hadn't yet fallen. Ethan leaned against the railing, the cigarette glowing faintly in his hand. His eyes flicked to Ava as she stepped onto the balcony, bare feet whispering against the wood.
"You should be asleep," he said, voice low, almost casual.
"So should you," Ava replied, matching his calm even though her heart beat faster than she wanted to admit.
He smirked faintly, exhaling smoke into the night. "I don't sleep much."
Ava crossed her arms, partly against the chill, partly against the way his gaze seemed to strip her of pretense. "Is that because of choice, or because you don't let yourself?"
Ethan's silence lingered before he answered. "In this house, sleeping too deep is a luxury. You learn to keep one ear open. One eye."
Her stomach tightened, not with fear but with a deeper awareness of what his life demanded. She stepped closer to the railing, her shoulder almost brushing his. From here, the city lights glimmered like fireflies in the distance, far removed from the shadows that clung to the Moretti name.
"You think I don't belong here," she said quietly.
His eyes turned to her then—dark, searching. "You're not like us."
"Not like you," she corrected. "we are more alike than you think ."
The ghost of a smile touched his lips. He flicked the cigarette into the darkness and straightened, his presence suddenly closer, heavier. "Careful, Ava. People who come into this world either burn out… or burn with it."
She held his gaze, steady. "Maybe I was already burning before I walked through your door."
For a long moment, they just stared at each other—the silence sharp, charged, fragile. Then a voice broke it.
"Ava?" Mia's sleepy call floated from down the hall.
The moment snapped like glass. Ethan stepped back, his face unreadable again. "You should go."
Ava lingered, her pulse still racing, before finally slipping back inside.
Ethan stayed on the balcony, hands braced against the railing, his jaw tight. For the first time in a long time, someone had looked at him not as a shadow, not as a weapon—but as a man. And that was far more dangerous than any enemy he'd faced.