"No one who has badly harmed me has ever cared how I would feel," Hakkai murmurs, and takes another sip of his tea. "Sometimes, they may care about whether I'm going to hurt them for what they did, but that's all. You don't even know me, Neal. I certainly don't expect you to care about my pain or about my approval, and I'm not going to hurt you."

So: he has no leverage at all. He wonders whether showing his open hands will make Neal lower his own defenses a little, or if it'll inspire him to attack.

"The way other people have treated you in the past isn't a fault of yours, but it also isn't a fault of mine," he adds, softly. "It's theirs."