Alex made a small sound. Not quite a gasp, not quite a sob. Just... something.
“Travis left two weeks later. Packed a bag in the middle of the night and disappeared. I woke up and he was gone. No note. No goodbye. Just... gone.”
My chest felt tight.
“I was fifteen. And suddenly I was alone with her and whatever piece of shit she was fucking that month. And I realized something.”
I looked down at Alex, even though I couldn’t see her face in the darkness. “I realized that I had a choice. I could be like Travis, angry and violent and ultimately powerless. Or I could be like them. Like the men who came and went. Like the ones who took what they wanted and left nothing behind.”
My voice dropped to barely above a whisper.
“So I studied them. I watched how they manipulated her. How they used her need against her. How they made her feel worthless and then offered her just enough affection to keep her hooked. I learned every trick, every tactic, every psychological weapon they used.”
Alex’s breathing had gone shallow. “And I learned something else. Something darker.”
I felt her shift slightly, pressing closer.
“I learned that I liked it. The control. The power. The way I could break someone down with just words, just looks, just the careful application of affection and cruelty. I liked watching them crumble. Watching them beg. Watching them debase themselves for just a scrap of approval.”
My confession hung in the air between us. “My mother died when I was seventeen. Heart attack. She was forty-two years old, and she looked sixty. Worked herself to death trying to keep men who didn’t give a fuck about her.”
I felt something hot behind my eyes, but I blinked it away.
“I didn’t cry at her funeral. Travis didn’t even show up. I don’t know if he knew she was dead or if he just didn’t care. It was just me and a handful of people from the diner where she worked. And I stood there looking at her casket and felt... nothing.”
Alex’s hand moved slightly against my chest, her fingers spreading out like she was trying to feel my heartbeat.
“I joined the Army right after. Figured I would get myself killed in some desert somewhere, and that would be that. But I didn’t die. I got good at what I did. Really good. They put me in intelligence. Taught me how to hack, how to gather information, how to break people without ever laying a hand on them.”
I laughed, dark and bitter.
“Turns out I had a natural talent for it. For finding people’s weaknesses and exploiting them. For making them give up everything they had without them even realizing what was happening.”
My hand tightened slightly in her hair.
“And when I got out, I found the Brotherhood. Found a place where being a predator wasn’t just accepted. It was valued. Where I could be exactly what I was without pretending to be anything else.”
The silence stretched out, heavy and suffocating.
“But here’s the thing,” I said quietly. “Here’s the part I’ve never told anyone.”
Alex went completely still.
“I don’t just like hurting women because I’m a sadist. I don’t just get off on control and domination because it makes me feel powerful. I do it because I’m terrified of becoming her. Of becoming my mother. Of being the one who needs, who begs, who debases themselves for someone else’s affection.”
My voice cracked slightly.
“Every time I hurt a woman, every time I make her submit, every time I break her down and rebuild her into something that belongs to me. I’m proving to myself that I’m not her. That I’m not weak. That I’m not the one who gets used and discarded. And the fucked-up thing? The really twisted, sick part of it?”
I looked down at her, even though I still couldn’t see her face.
“It doesn’t work. Because no matter how many women I hurt, no matter how much control I have, no matter how completely I dominate someone. I still feel empty. I still feel like that kid watching his mother destroy herself for men who didn’t deserve her. I still feel like I’m one step away from becoming exactly what I’m trying so hard not to be.”
The confession left me feeling raw. Exposed.
Like I just stripped off my skin and showed her everything underneath.
“That’s why I’m the way I am,” I said finally. “That’s why I need to hurt you before I fuck you. Why I need to break you down and make you submit. Why I can’t just... be normal.”
