Slade didn’t talk much.

Not because he lacked things to say—he simply knew the weight of words.

How they could start wars. End lives. Break people in half.

But in the quiet, when the weapons were shelved and the blood had dried, he spoke differently.

Low. Rough. Intimate.

His voice wasn’t meant for mercy—it was meant to command.

But with her, it curved into something else. Something slow. Sinful. Dangerous in a whole new way.

Pinned beneath his stare, she barely breathed as he leaned in, the heat of his mouth at her ear, every word deliberate.

“I could ruin you,” he said. “And you’d thank me for it.”

And the truth was—

He wasn’t wrong.