"I liked it." The admission burned. "The submission. The structure. Even when it hurt, even when he pushed past any reasonable boundary, part of me craved it. Still does."
"There's nothing wrong with wanting structure. Or even submission in a healthy context—"
"This wasn't healthy. This was systematic destruction of self." I laughed again, bitter as hemlock. "He made me need him like air. And when he left me—when I thought he abandoned me—I almost died. I would have been another statistic on those pages, if rage hadn't given me something else to focus on."
"But you didn't." Nathan stopped just out of reach, reading my body language with sniper's precision. "You survived. Rebuilt. That's strength, not programming."
"Is it? Or is survival just another protocol he installed?" I met his eyes. "What if everything I am is just scar tissue shaped like a person?"
"You're more than that."
"How do you know?"
"Because you're questioning it." He took another step closer. "The others, the ones who didn't make it—they never questioned. Accepting programming was easier than fighting it. You fight every day, even when you don't realize it."
"I signed up for it." Shame burned my throat. "Those others were tricked, coerced. I volunteered to be unmade."
"You were tricked to. He perverted that into something else, into thinking that you chose it." Nathan's voice went hard. "There's a difference between seeking support and being systematically destroyed."
"The line's thinner than you think."
"Maybe. But you're on the right side of it now."
I studied his face, looking for the lie, the judgment, the disgust that should be there. Found only steady acceptance that threatened to break me more than any condemnation.
"I need you to understand," I said slowly. "Parts of me will always be his. Responses he programmed. Needs he created. I can't just therapy my way out of reconditioning that went soul-deep."
"I'm not asking you to." He took the final step, close enough to touch but still letting me control distance. "I'm asking you to let me love you anyway."
The word hit like a physical blow. Love. Not want, not need, not fascination with damage. Love.
"You don't love me. You love the idea of fixing me."
"Bullshit." The profanity startled us both. "I love your sharp edges and broken places. Love how you rebuild yourself every morning. Love that you saved those women even though it went against everything you were taught." His hand lifted, hovering near my cheek. "I love you, not despite the damage but including it."
"Nathan—"
"Let me show you." His voice dropped soft. "Let me love you the way you should have been loved from the start. No contracts. No conditions. Just choice."
"I don't know how to be loved without being owned."
"Then let's learn together."
The simplicity of it broke something loose in my chest. I nodded, not trusting words, and let him lead me to his bedroom.
He undressed me like I was worth reverence, fingers gentle on zippers and buttons. Each revealed scar got attention—not the clinical cataloguing Gabriel had done, but soft presses of lips that made my throat tight.
"Knife?" he asked, tracing a thin line along my ribs.
"Box cutter. I was sixteen. Thought pain might make the noise stop."
He kissed it, then found another. "This?"
"Cigarette burn. Angry ex boyfriend." I shivered as his mouth moved over damaged skin. "Taught me to sleep light."
"I'm sorry." He worked his way across my torso, mapping trauma with tenderness. "This one?"
"Gabriel." The name sat heavy between us. "Scalpel. He wanted to see how much I could take without making sound."
