“I’m telling you,” he says, looking past him now, like this still isn’t real to him, “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
Christian steps in again.
“Think carefully,” he says. “Because this is the point where you decide how this goes for you.”
The man grins through the blood.
“Or what?”
Killian answers that with another hit.
Then another.
Force meeting resistance.
Again.
Again.
The pattern settles in quickly, and just as quickly I know what it is.
Useless.
Not because it isn’t hurting him.
Because it isn’t changing anything. Because this man still thinks this is something he can endure.
Because nothing in this room yet has told him otherwise.
I watch it longer than I need to. Long enough to feel the space where something should shift, and doesn’t. Long enough for that pressure under my skin to settle into something else.
Something quieter.
More deliberate.
If he can sit through this, then this isn’t enough.
I step forward.
“Stop.”
Killian pulls back immediately.
The man lifts his head again, breathing heavier now, blood marking his mouth, his chin, his shirt, his eyes finally locking onto mine properly.
I hold his gaze.
And for a second, I see it, the moment where he tries to read me. To decide what I am in this room.
How far this goes.
How much he needs to give.
He’s waiting.
Measuring.
Still thinking this is something he can control.
