cold. All white. She looks like a twisted version of Haley. There’s no sweetness to her. No kindness. Only a plastic, cultivated beauty from years of subtle plastic surgery and an anti-aging regimen that probably involves worshipping Satan. She strides into my office on stilettos, disapproval in her eyes. “Leo. No need to belabor the discussion.”
As if we’ve been having a fucking discussion. “Hello, Caroline. It’s so lovely to see you.”
The words taste like ashes and lies.
“Yes, hello. I’ve come to dissolve the contract you’ve coerced my brother-in-law into signing.”
I sit back in my seat and put on an air of mild confusion. “Coerced? He was perfectly willing. You have my word.”
“I’m not sure your word is sufficient.”
“I’m not sure you care about consent.”
She frowns, her eyes flicking upward in a mimicry of a roll. “Don’t be difficult. You and I both know your contract is exploitative, and I want it dissolved.” Her tone grinds into my bones like pitted concrete. There was a time in my life when a hint of her haughty disapproval would have me scrambling to please her. Caroline lifts a hand and gestures vaguely in my direction. “I don’t find this attitude attractive.”
Disgusting.
Caroline is disgusting, and my entire soul recoils from her. It recoils from the barrage of memories. Every one is an old assault made into a new one. She seemed invincible when I was younger. Untouchable. So when she let me touch her, I thought it was worth something. I was so fucking stupid. I was so naive. And I was an easy target. She was willing to give the illusion of approval, and I wanted it so much I was willing to debase myself for it.
That’s no longer the case.
Caroline is drawn up to her full height on the other side of the desk, as if being on her feet gives her an advantage. I let the silence stretch out. She’s the one who taught me about silence. About its power. About the way it invites shame. Silence will spur people into action. They’ll do anything to avoid it.
A subtle shift in her expression. It’s not fear in her eyes. It’s uncertainty.
Good. I want her to sit with the sensation that she might have fucked up.
She has fucked up, obviously. Caroline could have killed me when I was fourteen, but she didn’t. She let me live to suffer until that pain wore away everything but the need for revenge. None of her tricks are going to work. I’m stronger now, in every way possible, and I don’t give a fuck about anything.
No.
I give a fuck about one thing.
One person.
Caroline stands in the same spot Haley did when she first came to bargain with me. For a few moments before she sat down, Haley stood on the other side of my desk and tried to disguise her shaking body with a desperate confidence that made me so hard I had to fuck my fist as soon as she went upstairs. She was innocent. She was everything.
The woman standing in her place defiles even the ghosts of her footprints. Caroline, after all, is just like me. The two of us are made of dirt and evil, and Haley is pure and clean and good.
She’s the only thing that’s good.
She is better off without me.
Grief is a blow to the stomach. I’ll never see her again, and she’ll be better off. I sent her away before Caroline could find her here. I kept her as safe as I could, which was not very. I kept her with me. I am not safe.
I let the silence go on for another few heartbeats. “I’ll dissolve the contract.”
“Good.” Caroline reaches for her purse. “I’m prepared to sign—”
“Under one condition.”
She meets my eyes. “What is it?”
The thing about evil is that it has to be baited. I’ve spent years circling the Constantines. Years following them and taunting them and prodding them until they finally took the meat in their claws. Caroline has tolerated me fucking with her sons in myriad ways, but I’ve worn her down. I’ve made it impossible to ignore this final threat. As wealthy as the Constantines are, they also know that diversification is essential for survival. Real estate can’t be the end goal. Time keeps passing, after all. Humans need new technologies. That’s where the real money is, not in buildings that will only ever rot.
She’s caught in my snare now.
I open the top drawer of my desk and take out the whip.
It’s been there