Millie's eyes widened with fear, and Davyn felt the savage need to find Baron and beat him into a pulp. But he knew his number one henchman was not the issue. He was. Him and his duality, and the second life he chose to make for himself. That didn't mean he couldn't try to have it all. He would hate himself if he didn't.

"Can we talk?" he asked.

She shook her head, still looking afraid. He'd honestly hoped she'd start missing him by now, seeing as her absence tore him apart. It hurt that she didn't, but he'd saddled up for the pain. This could go wrong in so many ways.

"Go away," she finally said.

"I gave you the time and space to come to terms with what happened. Now it's time to give you the chance to decide how it's going to go."

The fear slipped off her face, replaced by surprise and a bit of curiosity. "What do you mean?"

Davyn opened his mouth but stopped when the sound of footsteps sounded from the staircase. A few seconds later, a girl appeared and glared at the two of them. She strutted between them and hissed a "You can't have boys here," to Millie before moving into one of the rooms.

"Can we go inside?" he asked.

"No," Millie said, her tone sharp.

This was so ridiculous since he would never hurt her, but he knew it wouldn't be as easy as to state that, so he accepted her refusal. "I meant to say that there is one way for you to make sure--"

Another door opened at the end of the corridor, and he swallowed the rest of his phrase. She seemed to get annoyed this time as well because she glared towards the intruder.

"They're just going to keep coming out and interrupting."

 "You could just say what you came to say."

"I was hoping to actually explain some--" Another door, another curious set of eyes, another cut off.

Millie groaned. He was seconds away from doing that himself.

"This is ridiculous. It's not like I'm going to assault you. I won't even touch you."

She didn't seem convinced, but her impatience seemed to win out because she opened the door to her room and strode inside. He followed, closing the door behind him.

The place was blissfully empty, but Millie headed for the window and stepped outside on the roof. The idea of being out there again gave him a bit of pause since it reminded him of simpler times. They weren't happier times, though. He had been a lot more miserable then than he was now. Now, he still had hope. At least for the next couple of minutes.

He stepped out, too, and sat down at a respectful distance. She could touch him if she reached out, but they wouldn't brush against each other accidentally.

"Go on, then," she said, looking down into the street.

"This brings back memories."

She huffed and still didn't look at him. He had no reason to hurry either, so he gave it a few more seconds before speaking again.

"All we need is some cheap booze and weed."

"It's not the same," she snapped.

"Why not? You didn't like me much back then either."

The expression on her face was definitely filled with pain, and it gave him hope that she wouldn't end it.

"Millie..." He let out a long breath. "It doesn't have to be this way, you know."

"You should've thought about that before you decided to become a crime lord."

"I did. I gave it a lot of thought."

This had her turning to him, frowning in confusion. "What?"

"I didn't do it because I wanted it. Hell, the first time Harkin approached me with the proposition, I beat the shit out of him. But I wanted to make them go away, and this seemed like the most efficient way."

"Don't you think you're taking the whole if you can't beat them, join them thing a bit too far?"

It seemed that way, but she didn't know everything. "Remember when I mentioned my brother being in the hospital because of drugs? Well, he doesn't seem to want to get clean, so this way, I could cut his supply from the source. Then there was protecting you and everyone else in this school from Harkin by keeping him busy with something else."

She didn't say anything for what felt like hours, her gaze lost in the distance, wringing her hands. At some point, her eyes filled with tears.

"Why are you here?" she finally asked.

"Because I haven't changed. I love you, and I don't want to lose you."

She turned to him. The movement had the tears snaking down her cheeks. "You have changed. And this... You have no idea how scary you were, how... Twisted."

He did. He counted on it to keep all those much older men in check. But Millie didn't need to hear that. She didn't seem able to handle the details.

"I told you before. I'm still me."

She pursed her lips to keep a sob in and shook her head. "No."

"As I said, there's one simple, surefire way to get rid of me." When she continued to stay silent, he pressed on. "I know it's shocking and that you need time to process. I hoped you'd start missing me like I miss you. If you don't, if you refuse to think about it and just want this to be over, just tell me that you don't love me."

"What?" Her eyes were wide and shiny from the tears. It brought him solace to see that the thought was just as ludicrous to her as it was to him.

He shrugged, as if it was no big deal. "Tell me you don't love me, and I'll leave you alone."

"That's not fair."

"How's that not fair? I don't want to break anything off since I'm actually still madly in love with you. And I took you at your word, that you feel the same, that you're in my corner. The only way I'm letting this go is if you don't love me anymore."

The tears slid down her cheeks, and she looked away. "You just had to tack on that madly in there."

"If it's not madly, it's not worth doing at all."

She didn't answer, but leaned her forehead against her forearms, crying silently. He let her, even if it broke his heart to see her like this. But they were going through something, and it was the moment of truth. This would either make them or break them.

"How have you been?" he asked once her tears seemed to have subsided.

"Just wonderful," she muttered, her voice still wet.

"I'll take the sarcasm to mean not well." She didn't grace him with a real answer, so he let out a deep breath. "I haven't been well. Everything just seems so cold and empty without you. So... pointless." She still didn't answer and it was becoming painful to talk by himself. "How's painting going? Piano?"

She raised wide eyes at him and he took it to understand she'd made little if any progress.

"Is your muse gone?"

"Shut up," she mumbled.

"Why are you hiding from me? Do you think I don't know that this is awful for both of us? If you want me to go away, you know what you have to do."

"It's awful because you made it awful!" She clenched her fists and turned to him. "Everything was perfect until you decided to become a crime lord!"

"It wasn't. At least not for me. There were things I needed to prevent."

She shrunk back at this. "Well, you failed with me, but I hope it succeeds for your brother."

"You said you'd be in my corner no matter what. That you didn't care if I was right or wrong."

"Davyn, it's not the same thing."

"Why not? Did you expect it to stay simple? Do you think what we have doesn't ask for a price? The more important the thing, the bigger the price."

She bit her lip, and looked away, rubbing her arms. He dared move a tiny bit closer, and when she didn't pull away, he put a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, I know this isn't ideal. I knew you wouldn't like it."

"How can you like it?"

"I don't. I just see it as something I have to do."

"No, you don't."

"I do. And it's something you have to decide. Whether you can be by my side through this or not."

When she looked back at him, the despair in her eyes almost broke him. "I don't know if I can do this. Why can't you just stop this?"

He couldn't. He'd put too much work into it to step away now, with no benefits. Even if he knew that she had a point, it felt like he'd been throwing a part of him away. Yes, maybe the entire idea of it was not the best, but how he'd organized everything couldn't be seen as a bad thing. It hadn't been easy either.

"Think about it. I can give you a few days and then we can talk again."

She considered this for a moment and finally nodded. He dared move his hand from her shoulder to her cheek. She didn't flinch away, just leaned into his hand. He'd missed touching her so much, it became a challenge not to take her inside and throw her on the bed. Instead, he scooted a tiny bit closer and caught her in a hug.

"I really miss you, darling."

"Don't do this to me."

He pulled away and looked down at her. She was so close, he could count the tears on her eyelashes. Her lips parted and her breathing became a little labored, like it always did when he was close. It filled his heart with an easiness and joy he hadn't felt in such a long time.

"Life is so grey without you," he whispered. "I missed you. I still miss you every day."

She leaned into him and her lips brushed his. It was all it took for him to kiss her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back with an abandonment that got his head spinning. How could she think that this wasn't worth everything? He held her against him, pulling her into his lap, kissing her for every missed day.

For a few glorious moments it felt possible that they could put this behind them and work together. Be together. Their love was stronger than this little snag in the road.

The illusion shattered when Millie pulled away, eyes shut, and shaking her head. Her fingers dug into his shoulder, but it was obvious that something was wrong.

"No, we can't do this."

He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "Why not? That felt amazing."

She gritted her teeth, but didn't give in. "This doesn't solve anything."

"I don't want it to solve anything. I don't just want to kiss you, though that's great, too. I want to be with you. Because I'm better with you."

"I'm better with you, too," she whispered. "But that doesn't mean that I can accept this."

Yes, of course. It was very important for him not to push at the moment, to let her get used to the idea and decide that she loved him more than she hated the idea of Snitch Gravel.

"That's why you shouldn't hurry. Just think about it and we'll talk later."

"Okay." Her voice was meek, but she no longer sound scared, and that was a huge improvement.

He knew not to press his luck or his advantage, so he kissed the top of her head and moved towards the window. To his surprise, she followed him inside, wiping her eyes.

"Wait up. I want to go downstairs, too."

That simple request made him happier than it should have. He did his best to keep in any form of smile and just nodded. It was so odd to walk beside her, so two floors down, he took her hand. She didn't pull back and it gave him even more hope. When they reached the reception, she followed him outside and the two of them stopped at the bottom of the stairs leading into the building.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked, keeping his tone playful.

"Shut up," she mumbled, but she pulled his hand to get him to lower so that she could kiss him.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her off the ground a little, kissing her back. He'd missed this so much, so he would take whatever she was willing to give.

She pulled back and pushed him away. "Now leave and let me think."

"Yes, ma'am!"

This got a fleeting smile out of her as she rushed inside. He hoped she was going to the music room to put the feelings to good use. He would hate for her to give up on her dreams. 

"Hey, Davyn." 

He turned to glance over his shoulder. Ron headed for him, hands deep in his pockets. Great. Now it was time for his mood to turn sour.

"What?" he asked.

Ron didn't answer right away, glancing instead at the closed door of the dorms. "Was that your girlfriend?"

"What's it to you?"

"Just making conversation." He heaved a dramatic sigh.

"Why aren't you home?"

"Freider's picking me up, and he's running a bit late."

Davyn would have cared more if he wasn't still so pissed at Ron for using him. "What do you want?"

The fact that Ron didn't fly off the handle immediately showed it was something important to him. "Look, I wanted to apologize."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "Really now?"

"Yes. It was shitty of me to use you like that when you showed so much understanding for my... Um, little problem."

Davyn lowered his arms and sighed. "It's not a problem, Ron."

"Not everyone is as open-minded about it as you." He glanced towards the parking lot. "But you helped. You really did. And I want to thank you."

Davyn walked to him and caught him in a side-hug. "I love you, you dramatic idiot. Even if I don't do everything you'd like."

"Yeah, yeah..."

"Ron!"

They both jumped as Freider headed for them, an ugly snarl on his face. Davyn was tempted to ask what crawled up his ass, but decided he didn't care.

"I've been waiting in the parking lot since forever." He didn't even acknowledge Davyn standing there.

"Hello to you too, Freider.'

This got his attention, but also meant getting a disgusted look to go. "What are you even doing here? Didn't you graduate already?"

"I like to hang around for the wonderful memories."

Freider let out a growl and focused on Ron again. "Come on. If you're nice, I'm taking you out to get McDonald's."

Ron's face actually lit up with excitement. "Yes! Want to come, Davyn?"

Davyn was tempted to say yes just to see the distraught look on Freider's face, but he noticed movement behind Ron. A familiar figure obviously waiting for him. "Nah, I'll take a raincheck. I don't want Freider choking on his food."

Freider didn't dignify that with an answer, and just whipped around and stalked off. Ron shrugged, grinned at Davyn, and skipped in his wake.  He watched them get in Freider's car, which was parked nearby, then turned towards the corner of the building.

Baron slipped out of the shadows and headed for him, looking a little harassed. "It's hard to get a hold of you. I needed to wait in line."

Davyn gritted his teeth, trying not to let on that he hated the fact that he'd seen Ron and Freider. Hopefully, he'd also seen the waves of hate flying around, and he'd just think it was not worth looking further into. "What do you want?"

Harkin didn't answer. Instead, he glanced up at the dorm building as if it was the most fascinating thing ever. A boulder dived into Davyn's stomach. Had he, by any chance, seen him and Millie? That would be catastrophic.

"You were giving me a hard time about staying in school," Baron finally said.

"That's because you still attend, moron."

"What were you doing here?"

"Admiring the architecture and thinking about burning it down."

Harking didn't laugh because he didn't have a sense of humor. Instead, he rubbed his chin and his thin beard. "You know, that would actually make sense. The school records are in there, and it could make both of us disappear."

"Want to add arson to your list of crimes?"

He turned to Davyn, obviously just realizing it had all been sarcasm. "Yeah, well, it was worth bringing up. I need you back at the office. A few of the boys ran into Perdi's men, and it wasn't pretty."

Fuck, damage control. With a heavy sigh, Davyn waved towards the parking lot. "Lead the way and let's get this over with. I actually want to get some sleep tonight."

With Millie's kisses still fresh, he might actually escape the nightmare. But until then, he had to do his crime boss job.

♣️♣️♣️

Sorry about the abrupt delay in updates. Had some very unpleasant weeks and it's far from over, but I do need to get back into this.

So, loads of things happening here. Millie may be persuaded yet. But that ending... How much did anyone see? And what will happen now? Stick around and find out!

Any form of support is greatly needed and appreciated!