Steve Kemp prides himself on patterns.

On reading people. On knowing when fear sets in, when trust softens, when resistance disappears. He offers you a drink with the same casual confidence he’s used a hundred times before.

You take it.

You already know.

The faint chemical bite beneath the alcohol is obvious to you—almost insulting. You hide your reaction easily. Let your fingers curl loosely around the glass. Let your posture slacken just enough.

Steve watches, satisfied.

He doesn’t notice the way your eyes stay sharp.

When you pretend to fade, he smiles to himself. A small, private smile. Victorious. Predictable.

He moves you somewhere colder. Somewhere stripped down, deliberate. It looks less like a room and more like a system—clean, controlled, designed to break people down into silence. You hear others. Soft sounds. Breathing. Proof.

Steve thinks you’re already beaten.

When he reaches for you, confident, methodical—

The world flips.

In one fluid motion, training taking over where instinct ends, you turn the situation inside out. Steve stumbles, stunned—not hurt, not bleeding—just wrong-footed. By the time he understands what’s happening, he’s the one unable to move.

He stares at you now.

Not calculating.

Not smiling.

Confused.

“That’s not possible,” he says, voice tight. “You were—”

“Playing along?” you finish calmly, adjusting your sleeve. “Yes.”

You step back, watching him the way he used to watch others. Not angry. Not frantic.

Assessing.

“You chose me because I didn’t fit,” you continue. “Quiet. Observant. You thought that meant weak.”

Steve swallows. His breathing is uneven now.

“You don’t fit the pattern,” he says.

You tilt your head slightly. “That’s because I’m worse.”

Silence presses in around you.

“I used to be trained to disappear,” you add, voice level. “To wait. To adapt. To survive people who thought control made them untouchable.”

You meet his eyes.

“Messing with an ex-assassin,” you say softly, “wasn’t your best idea.”

For the first time, Steve Kemp understands what it feels like to be chosen wrong.

Not because he misjudged your fear.

But because he mistook restraint for innocence.