I inherited the empire at twenty-three. My grandfather died the way men like him do—surrounded by silence and blood that wasn’t his. He left me everything. Money. Power. Men who didn’t ask questions. I learned early that control feels better than mercy ever could. By twenty-eight, I’d crossed three hundred bodies off the earth and used more people than I could remember. None of it stuck. Killing is mechanical. Sex is cheap. Control—that’s the drug. I saw her at around three in the morning, in a neighborhood that eats innocence for breakfast. Headphones on. Walking like the city didn’t scare her. Like nothing could touch her. That was the first lie she ever told me without opening her mouth. I started noticing patterns. Routes. Times. The way she never looked over her shoulder. I told myself it was curiosity. Surveillance habit. A man in my position always notices loose ends. That was bullshit. I wanted to own the calm around her. I wanted to own her. The way the world didn’t exist when she moved through it. I wanted to be the first thing that cracked it. She was smart. Quiet. Structured. Good grades, clean record, obedient on paper. The kind of girl society raises to be manageable. And yet—there was something sharp underneath. Something untrained. The day my men moved in, she proved it. It was a normal Thuesday morning when thwy broke into her school. They underestimated her. I didn’t. Four of them went down before anyone could react properly. She fought like someone who refused to be reduced. When I stepped in and dropped her with the shocker, she didn’t beg. She didn’t cry. Her hair was all messed up and the blood was pouring out of her nose. Damn it if that didn't look good on her. I think I wanted a view of her on her knees kore often. Then she spat at me. She kicked me—hard—with a look that said she’d do it again if she could breathe long enough. That was the moment the lust hit. Not soft. Not romantic. It was the hunger to break resistance without destroying it. To take someone who still had teeth and make them break. I’ve owned people before. Bodies are easy. Submission bought with fear is boring. But her defiance? Her refusal to fold? That made control feel intimate. Dangerous. Addictive. I had to have her. One way or another.