IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU…
IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU…
HIM
Istood at the edge of the alley, cloaked in shadow, my breath shallow and my heart pounding against my ribs.
The brothel sat across the street, its new paint, polished shutters, and gas lights burning warm behind its windows.
To the town, it was just another building, but I knew better.
The Oily Cat pulsed, it breathed, it exhaled heat and perfume and decay, like a rotting body dressed up in its finest church garb.
It was a house of whoredom pretending to be civil.
Every quiver of light from within, every silhouette that danced across the glass was a laughing desecration of the vows I had once whispered at an altar.
But still, I watched, because inside, she was there.
Violet.
The name filled my mouth like a prayer, bitter and sweet, holy and profane.
She didn’t belong in that place; she belonged in light, in purity, in something better.
But they had dirtied her. Every she laughed, every touch she endured, chipped away at her sacred core.
And I couldn't stop imagining her waiting to be saved. Waiting for me.
They didn’t see her the way I did. They saw flesh, curves, and a hole to pour sin into. But I saw the soul. I saw the soul trapped. And it made me burn.
It was pure temptation that drove me. My superiors told me to pray, but prayer had stopped working. All I could think of was Violet. The curve of her lips, the way her dress strained against her breasts every time she took a breath. I just wanted to touch her.
A shriek of laughter broke through the open window, sultry, drenched in gin, and I flinched. I pressed a hand to the rosary in my pocket, fingers fumbling through the beads like a lifeline, but it offered no comfort. Just cold stone and colder memory.
Inside they were laughing, drinking, touching. Corrupting. And Violet was somewhere in the middle of it, playing her part. She wasn’t meant for this. . . she was meant for me.
I would take her from this place and strip the filth from her soul. Give her a new name and a new life with my hand, under my roof. In my bed.
I would be the one to purify her.
A crash from inside snapped me back into the moment. Chairs scraped across the floor, and a scuffle spilled out into the street. Two men, drunk, red-faced, and snarling like dogs in heat, tumbled out of the brothel doors, their fists already flying and connecting with flesh.
“You think you can just take her from me?” The heavy-set man with a scar across his face growled, his voice full of venom. The sound of his words sent a ripple of disgust through my chest.
My pulse quickened and a knot tightened in my gut.
This was what I had feared: the unchecked violence that this place fostered, the depravity that lay just beneath the surface of every man who set foot inside.
I could feel the heat of it rising inside me, the urge to intervene battling against the cold logic that warned me to stay hidden.
The other man, smaller and weaker, scrambled to his feet, wiping blood from his lip, his eyes wide with fear. “She’s not yours, Finn! You don’t own her! I didn’t even get a chance with her before your dumb ass got us kicked out!”
Finn’s eyes narrowed, darkening with fury, and with one swift motion he drew a knife from his belt, brandishing it with a brutal flick of his wrist. “You don’t know what you’re getting into, boy. I did all the work while you stood there like a coward.”
My breath caught in my throat as I watched the knife glint under the dim light. My mind screamed for me to step back, to retreat into the shadows, to avoid getting tangled in the mess of sin that seemed to drip from every corner of this town.
But I couldn’t, not now. I teetered on the edge of madness, torn between the moral code I had sworn to uphold and the darker urge pulling at me.
Every instinct screamed for me to stop the violence, yet some buried part of me wanted to see it unfold, to watch these men destroy each other.
It was an impulse I could neither deny nor explain.
Instead, I stepped forward, the rosary clinking softly in my coat pocket.
“Fellas,” I said evenly, stepping closer, “what seems to be the issue here?”
The men turned, startled. Finn’s knife hovered inches from the smaller man’s throat, trembling in his grip before he took a step back. “Mind your business, Father,” Finn spat. “This little bastard thinks he can steal from me.”
“I didn’t steal shit!” The smaller man snapped, the blood from his nose dripping down past his mouth. “You’re drunk and she didn’t even want you, Finn. You got us both thrown out before I even had my turn.”
Something ugly twisted across Finn’s face at that, a flicker of humiliation giving way to possession and rage.
I stepped closer, the gas lanterns casting an uneasy glow across his flushed face. “So that’s what this is about?” I asked quietly. “A wounded ego?”
Finn sneered. “It’s a brothel, Father. What the hell do you think it’s about?”
“You think paying for a woman gives you ownership over her?” My voice stayed calm. “That she owes you something because you had coin in your pocket?”
“She sells it,” Finn snapped.
I tilted my head slightly. “And yet she still refused you.”
The smaller man barked out a laugh, and Finn’s grip tightened around the knife.
“Finn, just leave it alone.” The smaller man muttered, though there was still a trace of mockery in his voice now.
For a heartbeat, everything seemed to freeze, and the air vibrated with the tension of the standoff. In that charged silence I could hear the darkness whispering to me, urging me to embrace it, to let go of my self-control and become the very thing I had spent years preaching against.
As Finn glared at me, the blade glinting ominously in the flickering light, I grinned. It was a cold, lifeless parody of a smile, but I had made a choice. Maybe violence was the answer.