Page 108 of The Guru: Shadow

“I just know how things work in our society. It is built on greed, and we are the sinners.”

“I still have hope for a better humanity.”

“Then, my dear Emma, you are a fool. Humanity does not want to be saved, they want to consume and feel partially good until they are vanished from the earth one day.”

She put her hand on his arm. There was so much disappointment in his voice as he shot at her.

“Why are you so afraid of hope, Deis? Aren’t you the one preaching the very same?”

“I’m not afraid.”

But she didn’t believe him a word. She could see it in his eyes, sense it.

“What happened to you?”

It was the very same question he had asked her. Because he knew back then andnever dared to say. The way his eyes flashed at her; she knew it to be right. She could feel the tension between them rise. He wasn’t one to be vulnerable. For all she knew, he’d never let anyone in, nor see the real him.

“It was your first loss, wasn’t it?” she asked.

He just stared at her.

And as he still did not answer, she said, “I think you long for connection, for being seen, just as much as I do. Because you were never accepted. You tell people what they want to hear, so they follow you because it allows you to have controlled connections.” His stare became so intense, pushing her further, daring to speak of what he tried to hide for his safety. “You play, you joke, you control, you manipulate out of a sole reason: to protect yourself from feeling loss. Not caring about others keeps you alive. That’s why I unravel you. Because you care. And it fears you.”

His eyes glared at her; she could literally see the calculations rush through his mind. He was scared. Scared of being seen, of her knowing, of seeing too much.

“You don’t have a conscience.”

“No, I don’t,” he affirmed.

“But it does not protect you from wanting what you want.”

“And what is it I want?”

And there it was, the elephant in the room, almost freezing the air between them.

He was a strategic, calculating manipulator.

Without a conscience, he only focused on his gain.

He knew exactly how to use empathy to use people.

The dark triad united in one, and she finally saw its rawness.

The most dangerous of them all.

And against all her righteousness, against all she ever told herself to be right or wrong, she had fallen for him.

“Being loved, Deis. Being loved for who and what you are. Without the need to mask, to conceal, who you really are.”

He did not answer her. The flicker shimmering through his eyes for just a fraction of a second told her everything. She could feel she wasright.

There she sat with him, covered in blood, in his megalomaniac penthouse, one of the wealthy and rich she so hated. And she had no illusion he would ever change; a man like him does not change. Nor did she want him to, and that, of all the things, frightened her the most.

“Deis, why did you go after Gamma? You don’t care about moral. Nor the public. You care about gain. So, what is your personal agenda?”

“So many questions.” And his answer made her groan.

“Deis. I need to know.”