I paid the club owner five grand to find her name. Another two to trace where she lived. Ten more to install cameras in the hallway outside her apartment. I didn’t watch them every night. I forced myself not to.
Until I couldn’t anymore.
Until I saw her crying on her bathroom floor with the lights off, whispering stop shaking, stop shaking like it was a prayer.
That was the night I decided it was time.
Not to fuck her.
Not to take her.
To undo her.
Because what she thinks is strength is just scaffolding, and I want to see what she looks like when the whole thing crumbles. I want to know how she cries when it’s not from fear, but from need. I want to know what she does when no one’s looking — who she becomes when she forgets what survival is supposed to look like and starts begging for something darker.
Something honest.
People call me Hook because of what I lost.
But it’s not the hand they should be afraid of.
It’s the way I never let go once I sink in.
And she — sweet little fairy with fire in her spine and ruin in her smile — she’s already caught.
She just doesn’t know how deep the barbs go.
Yet.
I step outside. The car’s already waiting. Blacked-out. Silent. My driver doesn’t speak, just nods and opens the door. I slide in and pull out my phone, swipe through the images I already shouldn’t have.
Tahlia brushing her teeth.
Tahlia pacing.
Tahlia slumped on the couch in a hoodie three sizes too big, chewing her lip like she’s trying not to think about me.
She’s losing the fight.
Soon, I won’t have to touch her to fuck her.
I’ll do it from inside her head.
And when I finally take her for real — when her body’s under mine, shaking for something she doesn’t want to name — I want her to know she chose this.
I want her to hate herself for it.
That’s the kind of control I crave.
Not her obedience.
Her undoing.
Tahlia
Iwake up with a headache behind my left eye and a bruise on my pride I can’t fucking rub off.
Morning doesn’t feel like morning. It feels like an aftermath. Like something already happened while I was unconscious and I’m only just waking up in time to feel the echo of it in my bones.
