The city always looks better from above is what Vincent likes to say, because distance between you and people below you means something. Something powerful, something that can be controlled if you know where to stand. His office sits high enough that the streets below dissolve into blurs of light and movement.

You sit on the edge of his desk because that’s where he placed you, heels swinging just slightly above the floor. You still look new under this kind of scrutiny, bright in a way the camera loves and the industry hasn’t managed to sand down. A little star, they call you. Fresh. Promising.

Vincent stands behind you, adjusting your posture with two fingers pressed lightly at your shoulder, the touch gentle enough to feel instructive rather than possessive, though it is undeniably both.

“Not like that,” he murmurs, voice low and smooth, the tone he uses when explaining something obvious. “When you slump, you look uncertain. Do you want the audiences to think you’re uncertain, honey?”

He steps back, circling slowly, eyes scanning you the way a technician studies a screen, checking for distortion, for interference, for anything that might weaken the signal. You straighten without thinking.

He lifts his glass of whiskey and gestures toward the window, toward the city he keeps at arm’s length.

“You see all that?” he says casually. “Every screen down there, every living room, every family gathered around a flickering box at night. I decide what they see. What they believe. What they forgive.”

Vincent always insisted on handling everything and he did it so smoothly you almost didn’t notice how little is left untouched. Your wardrobe is chosen carefully, each dress and coat selected to suggest innocence without naïveté, glamour without vulgarity. Your interviews are pre-approved, your answers subtly guided before you ever sit in front of a microphone. He tells you the industry devours young women who don’t have someone strong guiding them, someone experienced enough to see the traps before they spring.

“Trust me with your image,” he said more than once, always gently, always reasonably. “You don’t want the public getting the wrong idea about you.” You nod more often than you question him now because questioning feels ungrateful and because things keep working.

Once a producer who pushed you too insistently, in ways Vincent didn’t approve of, stopped showing up to the studio. The explanations circulated in hushed tones. An accident. A fall. Wrong place, wrong time, no one quite sure what happened. Vincent never brought it up.

Over time, you began to notice how small your world has become, though it happened gradually enough that it feels almost natural.

Friends drifted away, one by one, not because Vincent forbade them, but because he explained why they’re bad for your image, why they envy you, why they don’t understand what you’re becoming. He framed it as concern, as foresight, as love.

At parties, he made no effort to hide you. His hand rested confidently at your waist as he introduced you to executives and investors. “This is my girl,” he said. “The future.” Vincent thrived on the attention that came afterwards, the power of knowing he’s the one that got to you first.

Now in his office late at night, you look at him. Really look at the way he smirks down at the city below you and wonder what happens to the people who stop agreeing with him.

Vincent catches you staring before you realize you’ve been doing it, one brow arching in faint amusement rather than concern. “What?” he asks, voice almost teasing. When you shake your head, murmur that it’s nothing, he hums softly and turns away from the window, setting his glass down.

He closes the distance between you in a few unhurried steps, charm sliding back into place as his hand coming to rest at your waist. “You look like you’re thinking too hard,” he says lightly, thumb brushing your cheek.

His smile is easy now, practiced, irresistible. “You trust me, don’t you, love?” he continues, voice intimate. “I made you after all.”