He leaned against the doorframe, bare chest dusted with fading bruises from battles he never flinched from except the one standing in front of him now.
Eyes half-lidded, voice soaked in mockery, he let out a low chuckle.
"You've got more fight in you than I gave you credit for," he drawled, each word slow, deliberate. "Still standing after all that? Huh. Maybe I went too easy on you."
She didn't speak. Her spine remained rigid, her fingers clutched around the hem of her crumpled dress. She refused to look at him but he noticed the way her lips pressed tightly together, the way her chest rose and fell like she was controlling the tremble in each breath.
His gaze dipped, lazily dragging over the bruises blooming on her skin like poisonous flowers.
"That fire of yours," he said, stepping forward. "It's charming. Dangerous. But charming."
She flinched when he brushed a knuckle against her cheek almost gently, almost like it meant something.
But the cruel curve of his mouth told the truth.
"I almost wish I could bottle that strength of yours," he murmured near her ear, his breath ghosting down her neck. "Keep it on my shelf. Take a dose whenever I feel bored."
She moved then. A sharp turn, a hard glare.
"Don't," she hissed, voice low, but steady. "Don't pretend this is anything more than what it is."
His smirk widened, slow and poisonous. "And what exactly is this, sweetheart?"
"Control. Power. A game you're too afraid to lose," she spat.
A laugh burst from him; raw and amused, like she'd just told him a particularly good joke.
"Oh, sweetheart," he said, voice honeyed with condescension, "if I were afraid of losing, I wouldn't be playing. But you… you keep bluffing like you've got a winning hand."
He stepped closer. She stepped back.
But the bed caught her knees.
In one swift move, he caught her wrist and pulled her down with him. She struggled, but the grip tightened, and her body betrayed her with weakness, the deep kind that lives in the bones, born of sleepless nights and too many compromises.
"I asked you something earlier," he whispered, lips brushing against her jaw now. "You've still got strength in those legs. Why not put it to use? A few more rounds. Let's see how much defiance you can moan through."
"You're disgusting."
"And you're still here."
She slapped him.
The sound cracked through the air like a gunshot, sharp, final. But he didn't flinch.
Instead, he smiled wider.
"There she is," he said, voice reverent like he'd just found his favorite song again. "I was worried you were starting to break."
"I did break," she whispered. "Just not in a way you can see."
His eyes darkened but not with guilt. Hunger. Intrigue. Something primal.
He didn't wait for permission.
He never did.
...
What followed was not love. Not closeness. It was a collision of pain, defiance, bitterness, and something raw neither of them had the language for.
The sheets tangled. The walls echoed. The room pulsed with the sound of breathing that was too harsh, too uneven to be mistaken for anything but war.
Her body moved, but her mind floated elsewhere above the ceiling, beyond the city skyline, into a silence untouched by his presence. Her muscles screamed, her thoughts splintered, and somewhere between night and dawn, the tears she wouldn't shed dried on her cheeks.
And then; silence.
Real silence.
She didn't know when sleep claimed her. Only that when her eyes opened, the sun had already begun its lazy crawl across the floorboards.
The space beside her was empty. The bed still warm where he'd once been, but cooling fast like everything he touched.
She blinked slowly, struggling to sit up. Her body felt like lead, her skin tinged with soreness and silence.
Then she saw it.
On the side table.
Stacks of crisp bills, neatly arranged. Cold. Clinical.
And a folded piece of paper, weighted down by a single, black cufflink.
Her throat tightened.
She reached for the note, fingers trembling not from fear, but from something harder to admit. Fury. Shame. And beneath it all, something colder. A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.
The note read:
"Looks like you're hungrier for this than you'd admit. Strength's overrated—money's the real addiction, isn't it? Your hard work's paying off, or maybe you just enjoy chasing the crumbs. Use it if you want—after all, you've earned every damn cent of this pitiful prize. But don't fool yourself: freedom's still a joke."
No name.
No apology.
Not even a smudge of regret.
Just his usual sharp, arrogant script and a cruel twist of words that sounded almost like praise, almost like threat.
Her lips pressed into a thin line as she folded the note back up, her heart pounding like war drums behind her ribs.
He wanted her to believe she had no choice.
That even when he left, he still owned her.
That the money was a gesture of power, not kindness. That the note was a leash, not a lifeline.
But she wasn't the same woman who walked into this game.
Not anymore.
She looked at the money again clean, untouched, like blood money wrapped in silk.
Then she looked at herself, bruises blooming, voice gone hoarse, fire dimmed but not out.
Not yet.
She would use his arrogance against him.
She would make this pain mean something.
Because if he thought this was over, he didn't know her at all.
She rose from the bed slowly, the sheets falling away from her like old skin.
Each step was deliberate, a quiet declaration.