Dorian looked at Charlotte with a faint, unsettling smirk. "Kill her?" he said, almost thoughtfully. "That's not a word I'd use."
The denial was effortless, almost casual, as if the distinction mattered more to him than the act itself. For a brief moment, something in him stirred—the urge to explain, to justify what he had done, to frame it as necessity rather than cruelty. But the impulse faded just as quickly. Charlotte's opinion meant nothing to him. It never had. Whether she understood or condemned him held no weight in his world.
Charlotte forced herself to look at him.
Her body felt heavy, drained, but she refused to lower her gaze. From the corner of her vision, she could still see Crawley—his body trembling faintly, his breaths coming in shallow, broken wheezes that sounded more like suffering than life. Dorian was not even granting him the mercy of a quick death, and the realization settled deep within her that whatever awaited her would be worse.
Much worse.
