He was fully conscious an hour later and his whole body slowly showed some reflexes. We both sat on the 2-seater sofa with his back facing me and his long legs left hanging by armrest while I untidily wrapped the bandages around his upper torso and on his left shoulder.

He glanced behind at me and chuckled. "Is this how they teach you bandaging at Scouts?"

"No, I YouTubed it," I answered frankly.

"Then it explains why you're doing such a lousy job and wasted a huge amount of disinfectant and bandages," he complained but I didn't reply. Even when he is vulnerable, he can still find something to grumble on. After done bandaging him, I took a step back and assessed my sloppy work and secretly concurred to his criticism.

"If you don't try to kill yourself, none of this would happen," I finally said.

"I wasn't trying to kill myself. I was just inflicting pain to my body," he objected.

"By electrocuting yourself?"

"It was a small current," he clarified.

"Yeah and knocked you out pretty bad," I said cynically. "I'm calling your GP and I'll pay him handsomely to come to your apartment today for a checkup."

He laughed at my mumbling. I reached out for his burned hand and placed a small bag of ice onto his palm, causing him to wince in pain but he allowed it.

"Nick, I'm sorry about yesterday. I shouldn't have said what I said without knowing that you're trying to make it even," I confessed. "But the least you could do is to apologise and we could get it on, I'm cool with that." Nick didn't respond, he was in a trance, enduring the stinging pain from the burn while staring blankly at whatever that was in front of him. "So you keep some weapons at home? What are those blades I saw in your bathroom for? That doesn't look BDSM-friendly to me," I mustered a question.

"Dad's, used for the tatbir ritual during Ashura," he answered quietly.

"So your real name is Nekmat?"

"No, not really," his voice softened.

"But you just said your name is Nekmat," I raised my voice in confusion. "Your dad calls you Nekmat and there's this guy Hayed in your email calls you Nekmat."

"That's what they wanted to call me," Nick gave a snicker. Sensing edginess in my face, he went on, "It's Ne'matullah. My mother idolised a legendary Hazarajat activist Ne'matullah Payam, she named me after him. Only a few called me Nekmat for short. But it's officially Nick now."

"Okay, why ditch that name?"

"Too many traumatic memories of my mother in it," he said bitterly.

"But I like Ne'matullah better. Can I call you that?" I grinned.

"No," he mouthed, mustering a painful laugh.

I moved my bum towards the floor, allowing him to lay sideways facing me while his legs still dangling by the armrest.

"I know this is a bad time to talk about this but I just can't let it wait," I began. "I know this isn't you. You are hiding me from you. You showed me many ways that you are not the notorious gangster Nick Pholadi I thought you were. You are not showing me the real you."

Nick looked at me carefully without uttering a single word. I could tell he was exhausted from the current constricting of his muscles but at the same time he felt the need to tell me something.

"You are wrong, Zahida," he finally spoke. "I am my real self when I am with you. I wouldn't allow others to see me like this."

He has a point though, he cracked when he was around me like something that suppressed him had set him free. But I felt the urge to go deeper to understand what caused him to be what he is today.

"What actually happened? Your mom?" I asked as starters before warming up towards the main course.

"What about her?" he asked back, confused.

"I know her death led you to this," I clarified.

He gave a long sigh before he began, "She was temperate, helpful and kind-hearted. I became her mould when she taught me benevolent beyond boundaries that I grew to love. Helping needy was my drug I can't never get enough of. My father was otherwise and hated what I've become. He said it was our weakness. Because he was already into narcotics and being kind could risk the family."

"Abs said you've known each other since Sunderland," I sought verification.

"Yeah, we were. His father's a fuckin' bastard. He was the reason Mom died. He had problems with my father's business counterparts, Morales and sought salvation from us which my father refused. But he knew my mother's flaw so he used Abs' mother to talk to Mom into sorting out his issues. Of course she would help, she even put her wedding ring up as collateral. When Morales found out about it, he felt betrayed. But that wasn't really it. Morales was a wicked greedy man. He had been eyeing for a bigger piece of Dad's flourished businesses. And having Abs' father was apparently beneficial for his infiltration to Dad's business plan."

He took a pause, swallowed his saliva before continued, "Abs father thought he found a new friend so he and Dad drifted apart without knowing that Morales was using him. But things got elevated and Morales reigned at our expense. He raided our homes when Dad was away, took all of our possessions and took us with them. I was 16, still weak to fight back but Cane managed to save me. Then they sent Mom and Abs' mother back to Hazarajat. Dad avenged for Mom, took Morales' life while Abs and his father left Mowbray like any cowards would do. Dad was devastated, he wasn't being himself ever since. He became vicious, consumed with hatred."

"How about you? What have you become?" I asked him.

"Empty. I still feel a hollow bore in me because I can never come to terms with her death," he answered, quietly held the whimper in between his sentences while tears involuntarily flowed from the corner of his eyes. "And I keep filling it... with things that repel me just to clear my grief away until I can no longer recognise myself. Either way, the pain would still come no matter how much drugs I took or how many people I hurt."

"Do you enjoy killing your victims?" I asked bravely.

"It fucking hurts to see them die even if they deserve to," he responded. Then he flapped open the blanket above him and showed me an image tattooed on his chest, slightly below the circle with his mom's name. It was an olive branch curved into U shape with a heart inside. "This is to remember the first guy I killed. He was a vulnerable old man. Since that day, I've been living a lie pretending to be brutal just to be invincible. I can never forgive myself for every sin I made."