"Put them on."
The fury finally surfaces. She meets my eyes with pure hate, but there's something else there too. The way her breathing has changed, the flush spreading down her chest. Even now, even knowing I watched her betrayal, her body responds to me.
I watch her. Not just with my eyes, but with every inch of skin, every cell of intuition I've spent a lifetime sharpening until it cuts. This doesn't feel like victory. Not yet. She stands in the Louboutins, blood welling into the soles. The set of her jaw says she'll outlast me no matter how deep I go.
I want to break her. More than that, I want her to admit she wants to break.
She waits, eyes a blue so cold they should freeze me, but I see the pulse in her throat. I want to wrap my hand around it andsqueeze until she's forced to look up at me with clarity, none of that aloof defiance left.
Instead, I circle her, making her keep her balance on those destroyed feet. Make her follow me, painfully, step by bloody step, as I open the next box of shoes. Four inch stilettos, silver, the kind you’d see on a runway or in a magazine spread, never on someone who bled like this.
"Try these."
She eyes the box. A flicker of disgust.
Her legs tremble, but she holds her head high. This is the part where most people would beg for mercy or at least flinch from the pain. She doesn’t. She just stares at me, like she’s memorizing my face for the day she gets her revenge.
That possibility excites me in a way I can't explain.
She bares her teeth in a smile as feral as any wolf. “I thought we were done playing dress-up.”
I let go, step back, measure her reaction.
"You don't even know what game we're playing." I watch her try to process that, the way her hands curl into fists at her sides.
"What do you want from me?" she says. Not a plea. Not even a question, really—it's a challenge.
I want her to mean it when she calls me her master. I want her to despise me and need me in the same breath. I want to see her break, and then I want to make her whole again.
But mostly, right now, I want to see her crawl.
A memory: my father, drunk on a Tuesday, forcing my mother to eat scraps from the floor like a dog. Her dignity never cracked, not for a second. Her eyes burned with something ancient and ugly—hate as pure as alcohol. I was five. I never forgot the way she stood up, straightened her dress, and smiled at my father as if daring him to do it again.
This is what I think of as I stare at Sofia, who is nothing like my mother, except for the fact that her hate could burn down a city.
I move to the desk and retrieve a file. Toss it on the bed in front of her. It's the report from the meeting: her brother, the details of their conversation, the time-stamped photographs. I want her to know there's nothing she can hide.
She doesn't even blink, just opens the folder, scans the first page, then looks back up at me. “This supposed to scare me?”
A laugh bursts out of me. I can’t help it. The sound is ugly, too loud. “You aren’t afraid of anything, are you?”
“I’m afraid of becoming like you,” she says, voice flat. “That scares the shit out of me.”
The words hit, but I hide it. That’s the game, after all.
"You think you're still playing by your rules," I say. "Let me show you what it looks like when you lose."
She doesn't flinch, so I take a step closer. Tower over her. "On your knees."
She hesitates—half a second, maybe less. But I see it. The moment she considers refusing.
I give her the out. I want her to take it. I want her to fight.
Instead, she does as I say.
She kneels in front of me, blood pooling around her feet, her posture perfect even in defeat. I look down at her—this woman who has bested men twice her size, who’s outmaneuvered cold-blooded killers since she was old enough to walk—and I feel the last of my self-control slip away.
"Look at me," I say.
