CHAPTER 23: [23] THE COLOR RED

Alyssa watched the intruder, and her mind tagged him with a single color: Red. Red for danger. Red for the blood he might spill—or the blood pounding in her own ears.

He was a trespasser, a criminal, a dead man walking if she uttered a single word. Yet, he met her gaze not with fear, but with a calm, analytical coolness that she found infuriating. And intriguing.

His expression hardened when she mentioned his friend. "Leave her out of this."

"So she is important to you." Alyssa sat up straighter, the silk sheet pooling at her waist. Leverage. This was a language she understood. "Good to know."

A squad of boots thundered past her door. Red’s attention snapped toward the sound, his body coiling like a viper. In that moment, Alyssa saw not a cornered rat, but a caged tiger. The power she held over him was intoxicating.

"Take off that uniform," she commanded, her voice regaining its familiar, imperious tone. "It’s offensive seeing a filthy criminal like you in our colors."

He turned back to her, one eyebrow arched in a silent challenge. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." She gestured at his chest. "Take it off. Now."

His jaw tightened. For a heartbeat, she thought he might refuse, might lunge at her. But another patrol clattered by in the hall, and pragmatism won out. He shrugged off the jacket. A plain white undershirt stretched taut over a lean, powerful torso, hinting at the strength beneath.

"The shirt, too," she added, her voice a purr.

Red’s hands paused. "And what’s the point of this?"

Alyssa leaned back on her elbows, allowing the sheet to slip a little further. "The point is that I can. The point is that you’re in my room, and your life is in my hands. Now, are you going to argue, or are you going to obey?"

His eyes flashed with a dark fire, but he complied. Slowly, he unveiled himself—not the bulging muscle of some of the base’s grunts, but the dense, functional strength of a born fighter. A thin scar traced his right collarbone. His skin seemed to radiate a contained heat.

He dropped the shirt beside the jacket, standing bare-chested in the center of her room. "Satisfied?"

"Not remotely," she lied, her mouth suddenly dry. She slid from the bed, wrapping a silk robe around herself. She circled him, a queen inspecting a captive. "I’m curious, criminal. You talk a big game about protecting people. About strength."

Red remained silent, tracking her movement.

"My father is the strongest man on this island," she continued, stopping in front of him. "He taught me that strength is about control. It’s about making people fear you, so they do exactly what you want." Her eyes flicked down his body and back up to his face. "Like you are now."

He didn’t flinch. "Is that what you think this is?" he asked, his voice unexpectedly soft. "You think I’m afraid of you?"

"You should be."

"I’m not," he stated. "I’m assessing a threat. There’s a difference. What your father taught you isn’t strength. It’s just cruelty dressed up in a fancy uniform."

The word "cruelty" struck a nerve. Heat flared across her cheeks, the phantom shame of her afternoon parade—the leering eyes, the whispered insults—burning anew. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

"What would a gutter rat like you know about it? My father is making me stronger! He punished me today to teach me humility!"

"I heard he makes you walk through the base in your underwear," Red said, not as a question, but as a fact. "He didn’t teach you humility, Alyssa. He taught you what it feels like to be powerless. He enjoyed it. That’s not a lesson. That’s just him sharpening his tools."

Hearing her name on his lips was jarring. The clinical way he diagnosed her—and her father—made her vision swim. "You shut up," she hissed, her voice trembling. "You don’t understand anything."

"I understand that you imitate his cruelty because you think it’s the only way to get his approval," Red pressed on, relentlessly. "You acted like that in the restaurant because you thought it would make you look strong in his eyes. But it just made you look weak. And pathetic."

"I am NOT weak!" she shrieked. Tears of rage pricked her eyes. No one had ever dared.

"Then what is strength?" he shot back. "If it’s not what your father does?"

The question hung in the air, sucking the breath from her lungs. She had no answer. Her entire life, her entire identity, was built on the foundation he had just called a lie.

"Strength," Red said, his voice dropping slightly, "is protecting the people who rely on you. It’s standing between them and the monsters, even when you’re afraid." His gaze grew distant for a second. "It’s what I do for my friend. The one you keep threatening."

"And I’d burn this whole island to the ground to keep her safe."

The conviction in his voice was absolute. He wasn’t boasting. He was stating a law of nature. And in that moment, a chasm opened up in Alyssa’s world. She saw the thing she’d been desperately craving her whole life, but she hadn’t even had a name for it. It wasn’t power.

It was devotion.

The room began to feel too small, the air too thick. The image of his friend—that confident, defiant woman—flashed in her mind. This man would burn the world for her. Her own father wouldn’t even offer her a blanket after humiliating her.

A sob caught in her throat. The carefully constructed porcelain doll of "Captain Hardy’s Daughter" was cracking under the pressure. She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bear the truth in his eyes.

"And you..." she whispered, the words choked. "You’d do that? For her?"

"Yes."

The simple, unhesitating answer broke her. She wanted to scream at him, to hit him, to order his execution. She wanted to fall at his feet and beg him to look at her with that same fire. The contradictions warred within her, a nauseating storm of hate, envy, and a terrifying, unfamiliar longing.

She couldn’t process it. She couldn’t have him here, looking at her, seeing right through her.

Alyssa’s hand shot out, trembling, but it wasn’t toward him. It was toward the door.

"Get out."

Red looked from her face to the door, his expression unreadable.

"Don’t..." she stammered, hating the weakness in her voice. "Don’t say anything. Just go. Or I’ll scream."

He gave a slow nod, his gaze holding hers for a moment too long. The silence stretched, thick with unspoken things. Then, he bent down. He picked up his shirt. He slid it over his head, then pulled the jacket on. Without another word, he turned and exited her bedroom, closing the door softly behind him.

The sudden silence was deafening. He was gone, but his words remained, echoing in the opulent prison of her bedroom.

That’s not strength. It’s just cruelty.

It just made you look weak. And pathetic.

She stumbled back to her bed and collapsed onto the silk sheets, wrapping her arms around herself. But there was no comfort. There was no warmth. There was only the chilling realization that the strongest man she’d ever met was the one who just left her bedroom, and for the first time in her life, she had no idea what to do next.