"He keeps notebooks. Did you know that? Meticulous fuckin' records of everything—every transaction, every weakness, every piece of leverage. He catalogs people like they're assets in a portfolio. And the worst part—thetrulyterrifyin' part—he'sbrilliant at it. At seein' patterns. At predictin' behavior. At knowin' exactly which buttons to push to make someone dance to his tune while thinkin' it was their idea all along."
I pause. Let that sit there between us.
"How close am I?"
Emmaleen's face does that thing again—the uncomfortable flicker. For just a second, I see the woman underneath the trainin'. The one who recognizes truth even when it contradicts what she wants to believe.
She shrugs.
It's tiny. Noncommittal. But it's abreak—her conditionin' crackin' just enough to let human response slip through instead of perfect submission.
I notice. Of course I notice. I'm engineered to notice things like that.
Then she catches herself. Straightens. Voice level and empty. "Understood, Sir."
And there it is. Back to the script.
But I felt it. That moment where Emmaleen Rourke—the actual woman—surfaced before the slave pulled her back under.
Which means I'm gettin' somewhere.
So I keep goin'. Because apparently I can't leave well enough alone.
"Right. Monsters." I start pacin' again, the lecture buildin' momentum in my head. "Let's talk about monsters, shall we? Humanity's spent millennia catalogin' them. Grendel rippin' warriors apart in Heorot. Dracula seducin' victims with promises of eternal life while drainin’ them dry. Jekyll and Hyde—that whole Victorian anxiety about the beast lurkin' inside every civilized man. Frankenstein's creature, who was actually more human than his creator but nobody noticed because they were too busy bein' terrified of how he looked."
The words are tumblin' faster now, stream-of-consciousness academic ramble meets existential crisis.
"And the Greek myths—Zeus rapin' his way through the pantheon disguised as swans, and bulls, and showers of gold because apparently divine power means consent is optional. Hades kidnappin' Persephone and everyone decidin' it's a love story instead of Stockholm syndrome with pomegranates. Medusa gettin' her head cut off aftershewas the one who got assaulted, because gods forbid we blame the actual monster instead of his victim."
I stop. Turn to face Emmaleen again.
"Every culture's got its version of the monster who looks human. Who walks among us. Whoisus, just without the social conditioning that makes us pretend we're not capable of terrible things."
My voice drops. Gets quieter. More dangerous.
"But those monsters?" I gesture vaguely toward the window, toward the world outside this cabin. "Those legendary, mythological, historically documented monsters that humanity spent centuries warnin' each other about?"
I let the silence stretch.
"Those monsters never met Giovanni Bavga."
Her expression changes.
Not the trained-submissive mask crackin' with a flicker of discomfort.
This is somethin' else entirely.
The shift happens so fast I almost miss it—one second she's sittin' there with that practiced patience, the next her eyes narrow and her jaw sets and I'm suddenly lookin' at a completely different woman.
She glares at me.
Proper glare. The kind that could strip paint.
I feel a grin spread across my face before I can stop it.
Thereshe is.
The laugh escapes before I can contain it—a quick bark of genuine delight.
