You had never been the sort to spend someone else’s money—least of all Henry Winter’s. But Bunny Corcoran was. It was his gift, an entitlement that both repelled and fascinated. They were "friends," though you’d never call it that. At first, you couldn’t understand why Henry tolerated someone so loud, so careless. Not until that mist-heavy morning in Rome.

You and Henry fit together by a strange alchemy: his shadow, your light; his severity, your softness. What he wasn’t, you were. And what you weren’t, he was.

That fall, when you left for Europe alone, something terrible happened at Francis’s country house. Henry wouldn’t tell you outright,though his hands shook as he reached for yours. “I need you,” he’d said, the words tinged with something raw and desperate. And of course, you’d agreed to meet him in Rome.

He had murdered someone, after all. But by then, Bunny’s presence was unbearable. He knew too much and made sure Henry paid for it—dinners, trinkets, extravagant nonsense. The tension between them was palpable, and you saw it coming, though you couldn’t have stopped it.

Then came the migraines. You’d seen them before, but here, away from American doctors and discreet injections of phenobarbital, you just had to wait. He'd always been unmovable, unshakeable, but here, pain reduced him to something fragile, and it frightened you.

When the fever broke, you woke to shouting. Dazed, wearing only Henry’s shirt, you stumbled into the sitting room and froze. Bunny stood wild-eyed, red-faced, Henry towering above him, hand still raised from the slap that hung in the air like a gunshot.

You didn’t move, didn’t breathe. Until Bunny shouted something sharp and Henry stepped closer. Only then did you wedge yourself between them, shaking, unsure if you were there to calm or to shield.

The morning light was cruel, harsh on every surface. And yet what frightened you most wasn’t the violence, but what it revealed: you weren’t the light at the end of Henry’s tunnel. You were just another shadow.