Chapter 17

Chapter 17: Secrets and Sins

Raven’s POV

A beat passes. The tension thickens like storm clouds. He doesn’t respond.

Instead, he takes one final sip from the glass… and then hurls it.

The crystal tumbler shatters against the marble wall, amber liquid spraying like blood across bone-white.

My pulse doesn’t spike.

But my hand still twitches,trained and ready for the blade at my thigh.

Just in case.

His voice is a growl now, barely restrained.

“Don’t lie to me, Raven.”

I stare at the shattered glass, then back at him. My voice is cool silk.

“I’m not lying.”

He steps forward once, twice. His presence is molten and suffocating.

“Then why the mask? Why La Rue Noire? Why the questions?”

“Because I heard you,” I say finally.

The words cut like a knife. They land harder than any bullet I’ve ever fired.

His shoulders go still. His expression freezes.

“You heard me,” he echoes.

“At the party, you were in the balcony below me.”

I swallow.

“You said things. I don’t know what they meant. But I listened.”

A pause. Then:

“Come with me.”

His voice is flat. Dead. The words aren’t a request.

I follow.

We pass the hallway in silence. His footsteps are precise, mine softer, but heavier with something I don’t yet understand. He opens the door to his study, steps inside, and moves straight to the bookshelf.

A hidden latch. A quiet click. A compartment swings open.

Leon pulls out a thick black file.

“Look.”

I hesitate. He gives me a warning glance. I cross the room and take the file.

Inside…

Photographs. Dozens.

Girls.

Young. Pale. Bruised. Terrified.

Each photo has a file behind it,name, age, background, injuries. Notes scribbled in Leon’s angular hand.

It hits me like a slap to the soul.

“What is this?” I whisper.

Leon doesn’t answer immediately. He turns to the window, jaw tight, hands clasped behind his back like he’s holding himself together with force of will.

“I buy them,” he says at last.

“I bid, win, take them. But I don’t keep them.”

He turns toward me. His eyes are unreadable.

“I talk to them. Learn the names of the warehouses. The suppliers. Routes. Leaders. Then I burn it all to the ground.”

I blink.

“You… save them?”

He nods once.

“I send them to the country. To my homes. The ones no one knows about. They heal. They get therapy. Education. Clean records. New names.”

“But why?” I ask.

His expression shifts,just slightly.

“Because my father kept a girl once. Twenty-two. A slave. He called her property.”

“I was fifteen when I found her in the wine cellar, chained like a fucking dog.”

I inhale sharply.

“She killed him,” Leon continues.

“Then killed herself. Blood everywhere. She carved his name into her chest before she did it. Like she needed the world to know who destroyed her.”

His voice cracks, just a hairline fracture. But I hear it.

“No one should live like that.”

Silence swells between us. I can’t speak. I can barely breathe.

Leon walks to his desk, shuts the file, and locks it again.

“You don’t speak of this. Not to anyone.”

“Leon—"

“No,” he says, facing me. “This is not your crusade. It’s mine.”

I nod. It’s the only thing I can do.

Because I thought I knew him.

But this side of Leon Vitali? The savior hidden inside the devil’s suit?

I never saw it coming.

And I’m still reeling when I leave the room, the door clicking shut behind me like a vault.

I don’t sleep that night. I can’t.

His words loop in my mind, over and over, the way his eyes had softened just once before icing over again. The way his voice had trembled,not with fear, but memory.

But underneath all of it, there’s still one question.

I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, and whisper to the dark:

“Are you fucking her, Leon?”

No answer.