"In ninety days, the 'Subject Package' will be finalized. I’m selling them, Deimos. Not to one man, but to a collective. The Inner Circle. The kind of men who view a woman's soul as a disposable commodity. By the time they are finished with them, there won't be enough left of Madeline for you to even recognize. And Lucy? She’ll be a doll with broken porcelain for a mind."
He leans back, the triumph radiating off him in waves.
"Three months until they disappear into the Elite. Three months until the names Madeline and Lucy are erased from every record on earth. And you? You’ll be sitting right here, staring at these four grey walls, knowing that the only reason they are being torn apart is because you weren't strong enough to protect them from me."
Charles turns to leave, his footsteps sounding victorious and self-assured. He has already written me off. To him, I am just another failed project, archived and forgotten.
"Father," I say.
My voice isn't a shout. It’s a low, icy whisper that cuts through the air like a razor. Charles stops. He doesn't turn around, but I see his shoulders stiffen.
Slowly, I pick up the receiver again, even though I know he can hear me through the glass. My eyes are as black as the mortuary where Madeline left me.
"Look at me," I order.
Charles turns slowly. I see that amused, superior expression on his face. He thinks he has everything under control.
"You’re right," I continue, and there isn't a trace of the broken man who was sitting here moments ago in my voice.
"You created me. You taught me that blood is just the ink used to write history. You taught me that compassion is poison. But you forgot the one thing you carved into me the deepest."
I lean in close to the glass. My pupils don't move a single millimeter.
"Ownership."
Charles’s eyes narrow slightly.
"Madeline isn't yours," I hiss through my teeth, every word sounding like a death sentence.
"She doesn't belong to the Elite. She doesn't even belong to the law. She’s mine. She is my skin, my blood, my breath. And you made the mistake of leaving her in your house. In my territory."
I smirk. It’s a dark, animalistic expression that would turn the blood of the Elite’s toughest killers to ice.
"You think these walls will stop me? I was born in cages, Charles. I’ve lived in them my entire life. Because of you. These bars are just metal. But your throat... your throat is made of flesh and bone. And I promise you, when I get out of here, and I will get out long before Madeline sheds another tear, I’m coming for what belongs to me."
I drum my fingers against the glass, rhythmically, like a bomb counting down.
"Enjoy those ninety days. Because every second of them, I’ll be in this darkness sharpening my teeth. When I return, you won't be selling anyone. You’ll be lucky if you find enough pieces of your empire left to cover your own dead body. Madeline is my kingdom. And you just signed your own execution by stepping into it."
I drop the receiver. It hits the table with a loud, hollow thud.
Charles stands there, and for the first time in his life, he is without his mask of absolute calm. I see it in his eyes. That tiny flicker of instinct telling him that he just unleashed a monster he can no longer control.
I watch him walk away, but this time, I don’t see him as anything else but a target. I watch his silhouette disappear through the heavy steel doors. It doesn't fill me with the suffocating need for approval or the blind heat of rage. It fills me with a cold, predatory clarity.
Charles thinks he caught me. He thinks this cage was his design. He is the Architect, after all; he believes every brick in this city was laid according to his blueprints. But he has spent so much time looking down at his maps that he forgot to look at the man he was building. I needed this visit. I needed this impulse to get my strength back. I don't play by the laws of men, and I certainly don't play by his.
I lean back against the cold stone wall of the visitation booth, a small smile pulling at the corner of my mouth. He thinks he has ninety days. He thinks the Elite are safe in their high towers, waiting for their "delivery."
He’s wrong.
I am always a few steps ahead. I didn't survive thirteen years in the shadows of the Elite by being reactive. Every move I've made for the last decade has had a shadow. A contingency plan etchedin blood and stored in the dark corners of the web that even Charles can't reach.
The moment the handcuffs clicked in the mortuary, a silent timer began to count down. My people, the ones who owe me lives, not money, are already moving. The keys are being forged. The safe houses are being prepped. The empire he is so proud of is already rotting from the inside, and I am the one who planted the infection.
I look up at the security camera, my eyes boring into the lens as if I can see Madeline through the static, sitting in that gilded library.
She thinks she outsmarted me. She thinks she broke the cycle. She has no idea that she just accelerated it.
