Chapter 9 #2
My cock twitches. Finally. A spark of something.
But then my brain supplies the rest of the image—Emmaleen in Lorcan's trunk, curled up in the dark, probably terrified, probably wondering why I'm not coming for her.
The spark dies.
My hand drops away.
I brace both palms against the tile wall and let my head fall forward until my forehead presses against the cool marble.
I feel empty.
Like someone reached inside my chest and scooped out everything vital, leaving just the shell. The expensive body. The tailored exterior. The monster everyone expects.
But the engine that drives it all is gone.
Because that engine isn't the monster anymore.
It's Emmaleen.
After I shower and dress, I go downstairs. My hair's still damp at the neck. Shirt pressed, tie knotted. The suit drapes my frame the way it always does. Custom-cut. Italian. Perfect.
I look exactly like Giovanni Bavga is supposed to look. The performance is flawless.
The actor playing a role has left the fucking building.
Jino's in the living room when I round the corner. Sweaty. Shirtless. Muscles carved into definition from two straight hours on the heavy bag. His chest rises and falls in controlled rhythm—not winded, just operational. Running on fumes and fury.
He's pacing.
I pause at the threshold to the living room, one hand still grazing the doorframe. Not quite entering, not quite retreating.
Just... stuck.
Jino stops pacing the second he sees me. The sudden stillness is almost worse than the movement. The scrutiny is uncomfortable in a way I can't quite name. Not threatening. Not accusing. Just... seeing.
"Do you know what happens to them?" Jino's voice is low, barely above a murmur, but it carries across the space between us just fine. "The girls you break and throw away?"
The words hang in the air between us, demanding an answer I don't have and wouldn't give, even if I did.
Never followed up. Never checked in. Never gave a single fuck what happened after they walked out my door with their payout. They stopped being my problem the second they stopped being mine.
So I just stand there, silent.
"Nothing," he says. Flat. Clinical. "You don't know because you never fucking asked."
True.
Also irrelevant.
I open my mouth to say exactly that, but the look on Jino's face stops me cold.
I cross the threshold and move to the leather chair by the window—the one that faces away from the conversation I don't want to have—and drop into it with more weight than the motion requires.
Jino doesn't follow me. "Day one," he starts. Voice still low and clinical.
I look at the empty driveway through the window. The trees beyond that don't give a fuck about any of this.
"She's out," Jino continues. "Free. Whatever the fuck you want to call it. And she's lost."
He lets that word sit there.
I don't bite.
"Her nervous system's been rewired," he says. "You spent weeks—months, in a few cases—conditioning her to respond to authority. To crave structure. To need correction. You made her dependent on the feedback loop you controlled."
I shift in the chair. Just slightly.
"So what does she do?" he asks. Rhetorical. He's not waiting for my input. "She finds a new authority. Fast. Doesn't matter who. Could be a bartender. Could be her fucking Uber driver. Anyone with a commanding presence, anyone who reminds her body of what it was trained to respond to."
I close my eyes.
Big mistake.
Because now I'm seeing it.
Some random asshole. Some guy who doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. Giving orders just because he can. And she obeys. Immediately. Perfectly. Because I taught her to.
"She attaches," Jino says. "Instantly. No history.
No reason. Just pure psychological dependency looking for an outlet.
And this hypothetical guy?" Jino's voice drops another notch.
Colder now. "He thinks he just won the fucking lottery.
A beautiful woman who does exactly what he says, no questions asked, no pushback.
He doesn't understand why she's like this.
Doesn't care. He just knows she's different. Eager. Compliant."
I open my eyes.
Jino has come to stand in front of the window and is staring at me now.
"So he takes," Jino says. "Whatever he wants.
However he wants it. Because she's offering herself up like a goddamn sacrifice.
But here's where it gets worse," he continues, and I fucking hate that there's a worse.
"He doesn't know the rules. Doesn't give her structure.
Doesn't provide the rituals she was conditioned to need. So she starts to spiral."
He pauses.
Waits for me to look at him.
I don't.
"Shame," he says. Counting on his fingers now like he's giving a fucking lecture.
"Confusion. Withdrawal symptoms. Because her brain's screaming for discipline, for consequences, for you—and all she's getting is some asshole who wants to fuck her and doesn't understand why she keeps asking him to hurt her. "
I lean forward, my fingertips pressing into my temple.
"So she starts the self-talk," Jino says. "Bad girl. Slut. Broken. All the things you whispered to her during punishment, except now there's no one to rebuild her after. No aftercare. No reassurance. Just her, alone, convinced she's fundamentally damaged."
He moves closer.
I still don't look.
"Depression sets in," he says. "Hard and fast. She craves the release you gave her—the catharsis of punishment, the structure of obedience—but there's no outlet.
No one who knows how to give it to her safely.
So she gets more vulnerable. More desperate.
More willing to do dangerous shit just to feel something that resembles what you made her need. "
I see it before Jino finishes his sentence.
Lorcan. Seventeen. Night of the Spring Mixer, just before break. St. Augustine's third-floor bathroom.
I walked in on him.
Didn't mean to. Wasn't supposed to be there. But the door swung open and there he was—pressed up against the tile wall with some girl from the sister school, there for the dance. He was fucking her from behind, his hand wrapped around her throat. Not playful or tentative.
Tight.
Her head was turned to the side, cheek pressed in to the wall, face flushed, eyes half-rolled back, lips parted just enough to let shallow breaths escape in broken gasps.
And Lorcan—Jesus Christ, Lorcan looked gone.
His pupils were blown wide open, nearly eclipsing the gray that should dominate. His expression was stripped of everything except raw, unfiltered focus. Like nothing else in the world existed except the pressure of his hand and the way that girl's body went limp under his control as he fucked her.
He didn't even notice me at first.
Just kept squeezing.
Watching.
Counting.
I don't know how long he'd been doing it—long enough to make the girl slump.
I slammed the door behind me, loud enough to snap him out of it.
His hand released. The girl gasped—sharp, wet, desperate—and crumpled backward into his chest. He caught her. Cock still inside her pussy, He was coming as I watched—thrusting in and out even as she coughed, and wheezed, and clung to him like he was the only thing keeping her upright.
Which, technically, he was.
When he was finished, he took a few moments to savor it, then he looked at me over his shoulder. No shame. No apology. Just... acknowledgment. Like I'd walked in on him doing fucking calculus homework.
"Lock the door next time," I said.
He nodded.
That was it.
We never talked about it.
I blink.
Jino's still standing in front of me, waiting for a response I'm not giving.