Chapter 18 #2
“You ungrateful little bitch,” he hisses.
“I made you. Don’t you dare forget that.
Every person you ever met in that city—I put them in front of you.
Every door that opened, every seat you got to sit in, that was me.
I fucking crafted you from scratch. Molded you into someone worth knowing.
No one gave a shit about Magdalena Holloway until I introduced her to the world. ”
He’s red now, loud. The room is too quiet. Too still. But I don’t blink. I burn.
“And now look at you,” he spits. “Slinging beers in some roach motel with him. A fucking felon. A street thug in a shitty bar who probably can’t spell his own goddamn name. You can spread your legs for that piece of shit, but you were too good for me?”
And there it is.
The truth, slick and sour and rotting between his teeth.
It was never about mentoring. Never about helping me succeed. It was about owning me. Keeping me pliant. Shaping me into something he could fuck and then flaunt.
Power. Sex. Control. He wanted to build a doll he could keep in his pocket and pull out when he needed to feel important.
And I had the audacity—the fucking audacity—to say no. To walk away. To stop playing the part he scripted for me.
I laugh. Loud. Ugly. Mean.
It slices through the bar like a knife through a tendon, sharp and bloody and completely unhinged.
He flinches.
“Oh, Warren,” I croon, leaning on the counter like I’ve got all the time in the world and he’s just a sad little joke on the menu. “Still clinging to that tired-ass fantasy where you’re the puppet master and I’m your pretty little marionette?”
I straighten. Step out from behind the bar slow, deliberate, stalking. My boots hit the floor like punctuation marks to every goddamn thing he ever did to me.
“You didn’t make me, Warren. You just tried to break me. And you failed. You handed me a lighter, doused me in gasoline, and still underestimated what would happen when I caught fire.”
He tries to interrupt—I point in his face.
“No. You don’t get to speak now. You mentored me?” I snort. “What a laugh. You paraded me like a fucking show pony in your pathetic little corporate circus. You shook hands with men who looked me up and down like they were pricing meat. You smiled when they did it.”
His cheeks burn. He opens his mouth again, and I lean in close enough he can smell the whiskey on my breath.
“You never wanted a partner. You wanted a pet. A possession. Something you could fuck and flaunt and control. But you don’t get to do that anymore. Because I’m not yours. I was never yours.”
He shifts back on the stool, just a hair, like the threat of me is something he’s only now recognizing. Still seated, though. Still pretending he has the upper hand.
Coward.
I don’t give him time to recover.
I hike myself up onto the bar—boots thunk heavy on the wood—and kneel. Right in front of him. Slow and silent. Like a woman preparing to pray.
But I don’t bow my head.
I lean in.
Close enough he can count every freckle on my face. Close enough to taste the hate rolling off me like smoke.
“You think you scare me?” I hiss, loud and unshaking. “You think the sound of your voice can still make me flinch?”
My hands hit the edge of the bar, hard enough to make his glass rattle. My whole body vibrates with rage and righteousness. I smile. Wide. Teeth bared.
“You’re not God. You’re not a king. You’re not even relevant. You’re a bitter little man who lost his grip and is too fucking pathetic to admit it.”
He opens his mouth—I scream.
“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY BAR.”
The whole place goes silent. Then erupts.
Cheers. Whistles. Hank yelling something about finally getting entertainment with his beer.
Warren stumbles back like I shot him. Like the volume alone knocked the breath from his chest. He nearly trips over the leg of the stool trying to escape.
And I just watch him go.
I slide off the bar like my limbs are made of someone else’s adrenaline. My knees are trembling. My lungs feel too big. My hands won’t stop twitching.
“I uh…” I glance at Hank, at Cain—who’s still staring at the door like he could chase Warren down and gut him in the parking lot. “I just—I need a minute.”
Nobody stops me.
I take the stairs two at a time, blood roaring like a hymn in my ears. My heart is pounding so hard it feels like it might split me open. I slam the apartment door shut behind me and brace my palms on the counter.
Silence.
Then I laugh.
Not the wild cackle from downstairs. Not the laugh I weaponized.
This one’s small. Breathless. Disbelieving.
“I did it,” I whisper to the empty kitchen. “Holy shit. I did that.”
And God, it feels good.
My knees buckle, and I let myself slide to the floor, back against the cabinets, forehead resting on my arms. Tears prick, but they don’t fall. Not yet. They’re not sad tears—they’re… something else. Something old and broken finally making room for something better.
For the first time in too damn long, I don’t feel like prey.
I feel free. Wrecked and raw and buzzing, but free.