“That’s it, sweetheart,” I mutter, voice rough, dead cold.“Don’t get fucking attached.”
She flinches as if I've slapped her.
Pain’s a better teacher than any lie I could’ve whispered in her ear.
I wipe my hands on my pants, brushing away the last trace of her like she’s filth clinging to my skin… or dirt under my nails, nothing more.
My gaze shifts to hers for just a heartbeat.Her hair is messy, her lips swollen, and her pupils wide, as she still waits for something real.
I turn away from her without a second glance.
No parting words.No look back.She’s already fading into the background, just another fuck I’ll forget by morning.
The bass of the club thrums with the intensity of a second heartbeat, dirty and relentless, pulsing through the floor as I head to the door.
The real exit - the one the public never sees.The one my father made sure I had access to the second I was old enough to fuck and old enough to work for him.
A back door carved into the bones of the building, not for safety, but strategy.An escape route in case I ever got stuck.Trapped with a gun in my face, or my cock in someone I shouldn’t have touched.Too young to give a shit.Too angry to care who it was with.
Salvatore’s already there, my father’s man, carved from silence and shadow, stationed like a ghost with a pulse.
He’s seen it all.
The late-night fucks.The club girls who thought I might call.The blood on my knuckles when things got messy and I didn’t stop swinging.He doesn’t flinch.Doesn’t speak.Doesn’t ask questions he already knows the answers to.
He just gives me a nod, shoves the door open, and leads me out into the night as if it’s routine… because it is.It’s the same sins with a different girl.
The car’s already waiting, blacked out and humming, as though it knows exactly what kind of wreck it’s about to carry home.
The car door shuts behind me with a hollow thud, like a coffin lid sealing shut.The stench of sweat and sex still clings to me, thick in the air, but the silence in here feels worse.
The ringtone slices through the silence like a rusted blade.
Old, familiar, and still sharp enough to cut.That sound, I’d know it in my sleep.
It’s the anthem of control.A siren song wrapped in power plays and promises.It coils around my spine before I even move, dragging me back into the grip I’ve spent my whole life trying to outrun.
I reach into my pocket, my fingers wrapping around the phone as if it were something dirty.
His name flashes on the screen.
KING PRICK.
Bold, unblinking, like he’s staring through me.
The vibration hums in my palm, steady as a threat.
I stare at it, jaw ticking.
One second.
Two.
Then I swipe it and hold it to my ear.
“What is it?”I growl, the words sharp, teeth bared, irritation bubbling like acid in my chest.
His voice slips through the speaker, clean, cold, and clinical.Always calm.Always in fucking control.
