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Adrian stops halfway down the passage and pivots, catching me closer than I allow most people to get. He swings a clean right hook aimed at my jaw with absolutely no hesitation. I don’t block it fully. Instead, I let it graze. Testing the force.
It lands harder than it should. I taught him well.
He follows with a knee toward my ribs, trying to close the distance further and disrupt my base. I shift my hips back just enough to absorb the impact instead of taking it fully.
I catch his arm on the next swing but don’t wrench it. Just redirect it enough that his knuckles slam into the metal generator housing instead of my face. The clang echoes, but he doesn’t cry out. Just hisses once through his teeth and recalibrates.
“You’re improving,” I note.
He snaps a kick toward my thigh. I don’t let it connect this time, shoving him backward a half step. He regains footing as I step in again, catching him around the waist and pressing him against the fencing. I trap him there with one forearm braced beside his head.
“Fuck, you’d make the perfect candidate for Kill Feed. It’s broken things like you, willing to gamble it all. And you might just actually fucking win it,” I murmur.
Adrian’s eyes widen before he tries to shove me again. This time I don’t stumble, and I grab his arms, driving into the fence, latching my fingers into the silver gaps to lock them into place.
He glares up at me, filled with rage, fury, and unbroken tension. This is where he dies.
A knife across the throat.
A break in the wrong place.
A choke held too long.
My options are endless in this empty alleyway. The generators would drown out most of the struggle, and we’re out of sight from the public paths and even the security cameras.
“This is where it ends,” I proclaim, searching his face for fear that should have sunk in by now. Instead, I’m met with a smile.
The bastard is fucking smiling.
This is… new. Is he enjoying this?
“You don’t want it to,” he finally says, grin still slapped wide on his face.
I pause for just a fraction, searching my own goddamed mind for answers. This must be his way of stalling.
“You think this is about mercy?” I ask as a frown spreads across my forehead.
“No,” he replies, “I think you’re bored.”
Bored. That word throws me. My grip doesn’t loosen, but it doesn’t tighten either as I try to make sense of how this person, trapped under my force, in my domain with my rules, suddenly got the upper hand by just one word.
And Adrian sees it.
He sees the fucking hesitation.
“You like this, don’t you?” he adds quietly, and I grab him by the throat. How fucking dare he turn my own game against me?
His eyes flick down briefly to where my hand rests at his neck, then back up.
“Do it,” he says, fighting against the pressure around his trachea. “If this was your plan all along, then fucking do it, you coward.”
This man must have a death wish. Provoking me while I have my hand wrapped around his pretty little neck.
A slow, involuntary laugh escapes my throat.
“You’re clearly not broken enough, little stray,” I state, putting my forehead to his as I dig my fingers into his flesh. “But you will be when I’m done with you.”
“I’ll never break to the likes of you,” he claims, rage accumulating on his face, but that infuriatingly confident grin remains.
