Chapter 17 #2
Then his whole face twisted. The fear transformed into something else. Something meaner. “You want to know what I think?” he snapped.
Bea sighed, sitting back. “Not particularly.”
“I think this is pathetic.” He jerked his chin toward the men behind her, his voice rising. “Three of the most powerful men in this city, standing around with their dicks in their hands while they let a bitch do their dirty work.”
The room went still. Not quiet, it had been quiet before. Complete stillness, like the moment before a bomb detonates.
Bea didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t look back at the men she knew were barely holding themselves in check. She only watched him.
Because men like him always mistook silence for permission. They always thought that if you didn’t immediately react, it meant they’d won.
He sneered, encouraged by her lack of response. “Is that what this is? You get on your knees and act nice enough, suck their cocks good enough, and they let you pretend you matter? Let you play detective?”
Killian moved first, fast and violent, but Dimitri’s voice cut across the room like a blade.
“Stay.” One word.
Killian stopped, but his whole body was vibrating with barely contained rage. His hands were shaking.
The man’s grin widened, ugly and triumphant. He thought he’d found the weakness, the crack in the armor.
“Yeah, that’s right,” he continued, his voice dripping with venom.
“Let her hear it. Let her hear what everybody already knows. What everybody’s thinking when they see her waddling around like she belongs here.
” He laughed, the sound harsh and grating.
“Women like her? Fat cunts who think they’re special?
They’re good for two things. Warm holes and a punching bag, and honestly, I bet even the holes aren’t that great.
Probably have to move a lot of shit out of the way just to find them. ”
Behind Bea, someone made a sound. Low. Dangerous. She still didn’t turn around. The prisoner was on a roll now, thinking he’d finally gotten under her skin, finally found the weapon that would break her.
“I mean, look at you,” he said, his eyes raking over her with open disgust. “You really think men want you? You think they look at you and see anything other than a useful tool? A novelty?” He leaned forward as much as the cuffs would allow.
“You’re a fat fucking joke. And the second you stop being useful, they’ll throw you away like the trash you are. ”
Bea stood. Slowly. Calmly.
She pushed her chair back with deliberate care, the legs scraping against the concrete floor with a sound that seemed too loud in the tense silence. The man’s grin faltered. Just a little. Just enough.
She walked around the table, her heels clicking with each step, and stopped directly in front of him. Close enough to feel his breath. Close enough for him to see that there was not one ounce of fear in her face. Close enough for him to realize he’d made a mistake.
“You know,” she said softly, her voice almost conversational, “the interesting thing about men like you is that you always reach for the same weapon.” He tried to lean back, but the chair didn’t allow it.
“It’s fascinating, really,” Bea continued, tilting her head as she studied him.
“You’re sitting here, cuffed to a table, in a room with three men who could kill you in a dozen different ways without breaking a sweat.
You’re terrified. You’re alone. You’ve been abandoned by the person you were loyal to.
And yet…” She smiled, and it was the coldest expression he’d ever seen.
“The only weapon you can think to reach for is my weight.” She let that sit for a moment.
“Not my intelligence, which is clearly superior to yours. Not my position, which is clearly more secure than yours. Not my connections, which are clearly more powerful than yours.” She leaned down slightly, bringing herself closer to his eye level.
“No. You reach for my weight. Because that’s all you have.
That’s the only thing small men like you ever have. ”
His face was red now, mottled with anger and something else. Something that looked like shame.
“You want to know what’s really sad?” Bea asked, her voice dropping even lower.
“It’s not even creative. It’s not even original.
It’s the first thing people like you always go for.
The low-hanging fruit. The easy target.” She straightened up, looking down at him.
“Do you know how many times I’ve heard it?
How many times someone has looked at me and thought, ‘Ah, yes, that’s the thing that will break her.
Her weight. Her body. The thing she sees every time she looks in a mirror. ’”
She laughed, but there was no humor in it.
“Hundreds of times,” she said. “Thousands, maybe. From bullies in school. From men in bars. From colleagues who felt threatened. From strangers on the street who had nothing better to do with their pathetic lives.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And you know what the saddest part is? Every single one of them thought they were the first. Every single one of them thought they were being clever. Cutting. Original.”
The man’s jaw was clenched so tight she could see the muscles jumping.
“But you’re not,” Bea continued, her voice rising slightly, passion bleeding into her words.
“You’re not clever. You’re not original.
You’re just another small, scared little man reaching for the only thing you think you have, and you know why you reach for it? ”
She didn’t wait for an answer. “Because it’s easy,” she said.
“Because it requires no thought. No intelligence. No creativity. You look at me, you see something that doesn’t fit into your narrow little worldview of what a woman should look like.
Your brain, your tiny, pathetic, underdeveloped brain goes, ‘Ah, yes, I can hurt her with this.’”
She leaned down again, her face inches from his.
“But here’s the thing you don’t understand,” she whispered.
“I’ve heard it all before. Every insult.
Every slur. Every cruel joke. I’ve heard it from people who were smarter than you, meaner than you, more creative than you.
And I’m still here. I’m still standing. I’m still the one asking the questions while you’re the one cuffed to a table, sweating through your shirt, trying desperately to feel like a man again. ”
His breathing was ragged now.
“So go ahead,” Bea said, straightening up. “Keep going. Keep spewing those so-called insults. Keep proving to everyone in this room exactly how small you are. How limited. How utterly, completely pathetic of a man you are.”
For a moment, she thought she’d won.
She could see it in his face, the shame, the anger, the realization that he’d been outmaneuvered. Then something shifted. His eyes narrowed, and when he spoke again, his voice was different. Quieter. More controlled. More dangerous. “You’re right,” he said.
Bea blinked.
“You’re right,” he repeated, and this time he smiled. Not a sneer. Not a grin. A real smile. “It is pathetic. It is the easy weapon. The low-hanging fruit.” He tilted his head, studying her. “But you know what? It still works.”
Bea felt something cold slide down her spine.
“Because here’s the thing, sugartits,” he continued, his voice almost gentle now.
“You can stand there and give me that whole speech about how you’ve heard it all before.
How it doesn’t affect you. How you’re so strong and resilient and above it all.
” His voice dripping with sarcasm. “But you’re still giving the speech. ”
The room seemed to tilt slightly.
“If it really didn’t matter,” he said softly, “you wouldn’t need to defend yourself. You wouldn’t need to explain. You wouldn’t need to stand here and tell me how pathetic I am for saying it.” His smile widened. “But you are. Which means it got to you. Which means I won.”
Bea opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out. Because he was right. Fuck, he was right.
“You can be as smart as you want,” he continued, pressing his advantage.
“You can be as powerful as you want. You can have these three killers wrapped around your finger. But at the end of the day, you’re still a fat girl who’s spent her whole life trying to prove she’s worth something.
” He leaned forward as much as the cuffs would allow.
“And deep down, in that place you don’t like to look at, you still don’t believe it. Do you?”
Bea felt her hands start to shake.
She clenched them into fists, trying to stop it, but it was too late. He’d seen it.
Behind her, she heard movement. Fast. Violent. Dimitri’s voice cut through the air, sharp and commanding. “Nico. Killian. Stop.” They stopped, but Bea could feel their rage like a physical presence in the room.
The prisoner was still smiling at her, triumphant.
“You lose.” He said simply, and for the first time in longer than she could remember, Bea had no response.
She stood there, hands clenched, body trembling with a mixture of rage and shame and something else she didn’t want to name, and she had nothing to say.
The silence stretched. One second. Two. Three. Then Dimitri moved. He didn’t walk. He didn’t stride. He simply appeared beside Bea, his presence so sudden and overwhelming that she actually flinched. His hand came to rest on her shoulder, gentle, but firm. A silent command, to step back. Bea did.
She moved to the side, her legs feeling weak, and watched as Dimitri took her place in front of the prisoner. The man’s smile faltered.
Dimitri didn’t say anything. He just looked down at the prisoner with those cold, winter-storm eyes, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop another ten degrees.
“You made a mistake.” Dimitri said finally.
His voice was quiet, almost conversational, but there was something underneath it that made Bea’s skin prickle.