The first thing you notice is the silence.

It comes a heartbeat before the blast—an unnatural pause, like the city inhaling. You're already running, notebook pressed to your chest, eyes on the building across the square. It’s old stone and glass, windows crowded with silhouettes. People. Always people.

Then the world breaks.

The explosion hits with a sound too large to be sound at all. Air becomes a wall. You are thrown to the ground as heat and debris rip outward, glass screaming as it rains. The building doesn’t fall so much as collapse inward, floors folding like paper. Smoke erupts, thick and choking, swallowing the square whole.

People scream. Sirens begin—too late.

You scramble up, heart in your throat, camera forgotten as instinct takes over. You're already cataloguing: the timing, the angle, the type of blast. This wasn’t random. This was precise.

A hand closes around your wrist.

“Don’t,” Louis says.

His voice cuts through the chaos like a blade. Calm. Infuriatingly calm.

You spin on him. He’s standing too close, coat dusted with ash, gloves spotless. His expression isn’t shocked. It isn’t horrified.

It’s resolved.

“What was that?” you demand, breath shaking. “Louis—there were people in there.”

“I know.”

That’s when you see it.

Not the fire. Not the bodies being pulled from the rubble. The men moving through the smoke—disciplined, armed, answering to no one but the subtle tilt of Louis’s head. They aren’t panicking. They’re securing.

And Louis watches them like a conductor listening to the last note of a symphony.

The realization hits all at once, brutal and complete.

The timing. The locations. The interviews that shaped public opinion. The way he was never surprised.

“Oh,” you whisper.

Louis doesn’t let the word finish turning into a scream.

He steps in, hands warm and solid as they come up to cup your face, fingers firm at your jaw, thumbs steadying the tremor there. He blocks your view with his body, with himself. Smoke and fire disappear behind his shoulders.

“Look at me,” he says gently.

Your eyes burn. “You did this.”

“Yes.”

No hesitation. No denial.

“There were people in there,” you say, voice cracking. “That building was full—”

“It was an armory,” Louis replies softly. “And a meeting place. They chose to put it there. I chose not to let tonight spread to three other blocks.”

You shake your head, trying to pull away, but Louis’s grip doesn’t tighten—it grounds.

“Don’t,” he murmurs, smiling the way a lover might when soothing a panic. “Don’t look back. You don’t need those images.”

Gunfire cracks somewhere behind him. Short. Controlled. Louis doesn’t flinch.

“You’re—” you swallow. “You’re the one they talk about. You’re—”

“The leader,” he finishes for you. “Yes.”

The word should feel dramatic. It doesn’t. It feels inevitable.

Your chest aches. “You let me stand here. You brought me here.”

“I kept you alive,” Louis says. “I kept you close. I kept you uninvolved.”

“That’s a lie.”

“No,” he corrects gently. “It’s a boundary.”

A stretcher passes behind him. Louis shifts, subtly, blocking it from your sight. His smile never leaves, but there’s steel under it now—something dangerous and devoted.

“I won’t ask you to forgive me,” he says. “And I won’t ask you to understand everything. Just this: if I hadn’t done it, more people would be dead by morning.”

Your hands curl into his coat. “You decided who lives.”

Louis leans in, forehead almost touching yours. “So does every man who refuses to act. I just don’t pretend otherwise.”

Sirens grow louder. His people melt into the smoke.

Louis lowers his hands at last, slow, reverent, as if releasing something precious.

“You don’t have to decide anything tonight,” he says quietly. “Just stay with me. I’ll handle the rest.”