Slide didn’t indulge in sentimentality.

He preferred clean exits, cut ties, and memories that faded with time. But this—this he saved. Not for weakness, not for nostalgia, but for the precision of it. The study. The control.

The camera had captured everything: the way she moved beneath him, the way her breath hitched when his name left her lips, the way her nails dug into muscle like she was staking a claim.

Now, in the stillness of an empty safehouse hours later, Slade watched it back—silent, focused, hands clasped and still.

Not for arousal.

For proof.

That even a man like him could be wanted that way. That even he could be touched without drawing blood.

And maybe, if he let himself, for comfort too.