BRODY
After all this time, my Bambi is still as stunning as ever. Those hypnotizing eyes that pierce through me. Those round tits. Always fucking turning me on.
I went into that building to do a job. My father made it clear what kind of person I needed to be after the incident, so, I became that. I did not intend to come back into town, but things change. I came back home to be closer, and to do my father’s dirty work. He needs me here. So, I’m here.
Despite my rage towards her.
The first girl to ever make me feel. To make me yearn.
To make me fucking obsessed. I fell for her and she fell for me, then, it all fell down.
Back then, just the thought of her made me feel something that wasn’t hunger or hate, but this sick, shivering hope that maybe I could be changed. That she could fix me.
Lola Bloom is exactly like her father: a sly snake. A conniving bitch.
I can still envision her. Earlier, in the studio before I made my kill.
Lola, spinning slowly in the center of a biting white light, music pulsing and hands everywhere, her hips grinding.
Her face was a half-shadow, but I knew every line.
The perfect jaw, the lips made for sucking, those blue eyes that lock and twist and take.
She gave a performance back there. She was the best at pretending: helpless, desperate for rescue, needing someone to champion her, when what she really craves is power. Control.
But I couldn’t stop looking at her. Never could. The need is still there, festering, doubling back on itself, black and bitter and endless. She is an infestation in my fucking blood. The anger consumes me, but so does the obsessive hunger.
It’s pathetic. I want to break something. Rip drywall, splatter blood. Instead, I focus on the aftermath of the job. My father’s voice echoes from a thousand dissected memories:
You are a tool, Brody. That’s all. Emotion makes you weak. Focus on the work. It’s what you were bred for.
When I left three years ago, after the incident, I became my father’s personal puppet. A “fixer” apprentice. Trained to kill, to hunt, to watch, to stalk, to take out any information that could end my father. I make sure certain people stay loyal. If they don’t? I kill them.
It doesn’t just stay local though, I’ve had to take out people across the globe related to his filthy fucking business.
My father has connections and enemies all around the country.
I’ve travelled intensely over the past few years.
Training, killing, collecting information, threatening the enemies, destroying information.
Ironically enough, his work collides with Lola’s stepfather, Marcus.
My father is a well-known lawyer. Powerful, but incredibly shady.
He uses his profession for leverage and control.
People owe him favors, paperwork disappears, charges get reduced, evidence gets lost in cases, enemies get trapped in legal hell until they break.
The list goes on.
He said it would kill the grief. He said it would make me forget. I haven’t forgotten. In fact, the anger has augmented into something dangerous and violent.
It’s in my blood. It always will be.
I wouldn’t have come back, not for anything.
But my father called, and when he calls, you listen.
His instructions are precise. The old man rarely wastes words; he sends a location, a time, maybe a brief note about who needs to bleed and why.
I go where I’m told and do what’s required.
I’m the best at what I do, because I have nothing else.
Except the memory of her.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, screen lighting up with a message from Richard. I rarely call him dad anymore.
All done?
Me: Yes
I don’t specify; he knows I will get it done. That’s what he trained me to do. Like a loyal dog.
Good, Son. I won’t be home tonight. Please make sure Sophie eats dinner.
I put the phone in my pocket, and head towards home. Once I arrive, I pause outside the house. My reflection stares back from the glass: jaw set, eyes hollow, suit immaculate. The Observer. My father’s creation. I barely recognize my own face anymore.
My hand tightens on the doorknob as I let myself in, reminding myself, over and over: Lola is the enemy. Lola is the reason my mother’s dead. Lola is the sickness spreading through me, making me weak, making me want.
Enemy. Disease. Poison.
But fuck, the thought of her still wrecks me. Still owns me.
I will not let her win again.
Not this time.
The door clicks shut behind me and I let the quiet settle. My father’s house is a shrine to efficiency. There’s no clutter, no mess, nothing left out of place.
Sophie’s in the kitchen. I can see her from the foyer, pretending not to notice me at first. She’s slicing something, her hands steady, eyes down. Always the peacekeeper. Always bracing for aftershocks. I watch for a moment, unmoving. She must sense me, because the knife stalls mid-slice.
“You’re home,” she says, chin tucked, like she’s working out how dangerous I might be tonight.
“Yeah.” I let my shoes fall heavily on the wood as I move in. “I said I’d be.”
I keep it neutral. Controlled. The version of me Sophie can handle. Civilized, patient, not the thing that wants to tear down walls, to gnaw the world to the bone just to get to Lola.
Sophie glances up, eyes warm, scanning for wounds. “How was the trip?”
I almost laugh. The trip? She means the kill. The job. The reason I exist. “Same as always.” I pull out a barstool, toss my jacket over the back. “Tiresome. Clients suck. Dad’s got me on new shit already.”
She nods, lips pressed tight. No questions; she’s too smart for that. Part of me appreciates her caution, the way she tiptoes around the wound at the center of this family. She’ll never touch it, never dig, just smooth everything over with careful words and soft hands.
“You eating?” I ask to fill the space.
She hesitates, then pushes her hair behind her ear. “I can make something. It’s really no trouble…”
I hold up a hand. “Don’t bother. I’m not hungry.”
Not for food, anyway. Inside, the other appetite glowers and smolders.
I cannot get the image out of my skull: Lola, center stage, grinding her hips slowly over a stranger, mouth open in a practiced gasp.
The way she lets them look, lets them paw, like it means nothing.
Sells herself for a camera flash, a few hundred bucks, maybe less.
The hate rears up again, dark and familiar. For a second, everything goes white around the edges.
Why do you let them touch you, Lola? Why do you crave their eyes on your body? Why do you act like you have no shame? Why wasn’t I enough for you?
It’s the same question I asked over and over on the night she ruined me.
Enemy, I remind myself. She’s the enemy now. A poison that needs to be purged.
Sophie says something about Richard, about him running late, but I barely process it. She eyes me then, her gaze flicking from my hands to my face, reading the micro-expressions like she always did. “You’re tense,” she murmurs. “Is it the work?”
“Always is.”
She nods, skeptical. “You know… you don’t have to do what he asks. You could—”
“I could do what?” The words snap, colder than I mean. I rein it in. “You know how it works, Soph. Dad needs results.”
Her mouth twists. She doesn’t push it further. Smart girl. I drum my fingers on the counter, restless. My mind cycles back to that party, to the betrayal, to the aftermath.
Lola’s eyes wide, lips smeared with someone else’s taste. The look she gave me; confused, begging, or maybe just bored. I can’t fucking decide.
I thought I was her protector. I thought I mattered. Turns out, I was just another mark. Another idiot lining up to worship at the altar of her ass.
Sophie is still watching me, so I shift gears. “What’s new around here?”
“Not much.” She shrugs, arms folded, trying to appear casual. “Lola’s modeling, you know. She’s doing well, I think. She’s coming over tomorrow, actually. I hope that’s… I hope it’s not awkward for you.”
I let the words wash over me. Modeling? Is that what it is? Looks like she would have fucked that guy if he asked nicely. I school my features and force a smile. “No problem.”
She relaxes a little, her shoulders unknotting. If only she knew. If only she could see what her friend really is when the makeup peels off and the lights fade.
Sophie tries for small talk. I answer in clipped monosyllables, keeping her at arm’s length. I don’t want to be seen. Not really. Observation suits me better. The Observer. The Outsider.
Inside, the promises churn.
I will watch Lola. I will trace every move. I will catalog every fuck-up, every lie, every time she lets someone have a piece of her. I’ll wait until she thinks she’s untouchable, thinks I’m neutralized.
Then I’ll make her pay for what she did.
She destroyed me. Left me empty, sick, obsessed. What’s the point of pretending otherwise? It’s the only truth that ever felt honest.
I fidget with my cufflinks, keenly aware of how staged the moment is. A family tableau, all of us pretending we aren’t monsters. I picture Lola walking in tomorrow, curves on display and smiling sweetly. Maybe she’ll look at me and remember how it used to be. Or maybe she’s too far gone for that.
Doesn’t matter.
She’s a bitch. A whore. She’s the enemy.
But she’s also the only thing that’s ever made me feel alive. The only heat I ever tasted.
That’s why I can’t let go.
After dinner, I go to my room. The sheets are crisp, but there’s nothing personal here, nothing lingering from before. It’s all been erased.
Except memory. Memory is what I have left.
I stare at the ceiling, replaying Lola’s dance, frame by frame, until all I see when I close my eyes is her body, her eyes, her mouth.
All I hear is her laughter. I tell myself I hate it—hate her—but my cock betrays me, stiffening at the thought of splitting her open, making her scream my name, making her beg for mercy.
You want to be watched, don’t you, Lola? You love it. You love being a whore. You love being ruined. I’ll watch you, Bambi. I’ll watch until you break. Then I’ll show you what real destruction looks like.
I fall asleep that way. Aroused and furious, half-choking on the need to own her, to erase her, to finally be free of this fucking disease.
But I know I’ll never be free.
The only cure is her.
I wake before sunrise; I never sleep past six, not anymore. My body runs on orders and aftermath, my mind always cycling.
Memories, threats, obscene little daydreams, all colliding behind my eyes. I stare at the ceiling at the paint cracks fracturing overhead, and think about Lola. Lola in motion. Lola laughing at something I’ll never hear. Lola pressed up against another man’s cock, writhing for the camera.
It burns. It always burns.
Eventually, I drag myself out of bed, shower cold, and dress carefully.
Everything in its proper place; shirt, slacks, cuffs, the armor of a man who can be trusted.
I play my role. Downstairs, Sophie is already up, making tea.
She glances at me sideways, polite, wary, like I might shatter the cup in her hand just to watch the shards scatter.
She clears her throat. “Morning.”
I nod, noncommittal, and pour myself black coffee. The only way I take it.
We stand there, locked in an easy silence. She’s lost in thought, probably already mulling over what she’ll say when Lola gets here. How she’ll smooth things over, make everything less jagged.
She tries again with a gentler voice. “Are you still okay with Lola coming by?”
It’s not okay. But I lie anyway. “Like I said, fine by me.”
She lets out a breath, almost a laugh. “I just thought, you know, since you guys haven’t seen each other in a while. It’s been three years, maybe it wouldn’t be too weird.”
Three years feels closer to three lifetimes.
Three years of bitterness, of missing the way she used to look at me.
I always told myself I wouldn’t be in the same room with her again.
I didn't trust myself to not rip her apart, or throw her against a wall just to taste the fear in her voice.
But here I am. Counting down the minutes.
Sophie watches my face, searching for cracks, for the monster behind the mask. I give her nothing. This isn’t about her.
My thoughts race. Scenarios unfold, instant by instant: Lola stepping through the door, her eyes finding mine, and she freezes like a deer caught in headlights. Maybe scared, maybe excited, maybe both.
I take a sip of coffee, letting it scald my tongue, in hopes the pain will drown out everything else.
It doesn’t.
Sophie is still hovering. “I invited her for lunch. Just to catch up. No pressure, okay?”
I nod. “No pressure.”
But inside, pressure builds. A storm gathering at the base of my spine, all of my muscles taut, wired, ready for war.
I wonder what she’ll wear. Something tight, probably. She always knew how to reel in attention. She pretended not to notice the stares, but she fed off them. I hate how good she is at it, yet I crave it anyway.
I finish my coffee and rinse the mug with a shaky hand. I can feel myself vibrating at a frequency nobody else can hear. Pure anticipation, hate and hunger, braided tight.
I tell myself: you’re just watching her. You’re just gathering information. You’re a professional. Don’t let your dick or your grudges get in the way. Make her believe you’re over it.
But when I close my eyes, I see her as she was in the studio. I see her as she was the last time we fucked. That’s my Lola. Filth and sweetness in one pretty package.
When the doorbell finally rings, I freeze, every nerve ending on high alert.
A predator catching the scent of prey. I wait for Sophie to float to the door, all soft reassurances and friendly smiles.
I hang back, wanting to watch the play unfold.
I want to know if she’ll sense me, even through the walls.
I keep my distance for now, lurking at the landing.
But I’ll be there. Watching her.
Let the war begin.