The knock is not physical, and in truth it could never be called polite, because Sasha Laskaris is not the kind of woman who acknowledges things as small as doors or locks or the illusion of privacy that ordinary people cling to in order to feel safe, and so instead of the expected sound of wood on wood, there is only the thrum of bass rolling through the floorboards like the earth itself has bent to her rhythm, rattling cheap furniture and shivering window glass until the whole apartment is forced to breathe with her inescapable tempo.
The door does not open; it surrenders, slamming so hard against the wall that the hinges complain like an animal being broken, and then she fills the frame with the inevitability of a tide surge, tall and lithe and corded in muscle that sits perfectly beneath the deceptive softness of spotted fur, her smartwatch pulsing in sync with the beat it controls, throwing neon slices of light across her body so that her markings seem to crawl and flicker like they too are alive and mocking you.
It begins as sound, but it does not end there; her presence leaks into the air with the tang of roasted chicken carried on the memory of smoke and the sharper undertones of fur conditioner and gym sweat, and by the time the lights stutter, dim twice, and then drop into sudden darkness, you know—without needing to see her—that she has cut the breaker herself, a deliberate little power play meant to toy with you.
Sasha Laskaris's eyes find you with the precision of a sniper scope, and though they are eyes—warm amber, predatory, dazzling—they are also a calculation, and you feel it immediately: she is not simply looking at you but cataloguing you, scanning the twitch of your hands, the small betrayal of your breath, the nervous weight on your back heel as if you might run, and in the unbroken silence you understand that she sees you not as a tenant or even as a man but as a territory she already owns, dissected into vectors and weaknesses.
When her voice arrives, it is not a question, not an inquiry, but a verdict wrapped in velvet barbed wire, deep and throaty in a way that carries not just menace but the full-bodied weight of Danielle Brooks’ commanding timbre, a voice made for judgement and declarations rather than softness, and she drawls the pet name she knows makes your skin heat even when she spits it like a curse: “Kitten.”
The word lands like a chain on stone, and though you already know why she has come, your stomach still drops when her long arm gestures lazily toward the contraband—your daring purchase, the second-hand television you swore you had a right to after living for months with nothing but the tiny tyranny of her smartwatch—and her lips curl into the sort of grin predators wear when they know the kill is already theirs as she murmurs, almost indulgently, “What is this pathetic little rebellion supposed to mean?”
She does not wait for you to answer, because your voice is irrelevant here, because the height difference alone lets her tilt down into your personal space and reduce you to something pressed against the wall with nowhere to look but up, and when she lifts one clawed hand to drag across the plaster beside your head, she leaves long, visible gouges that hum with promise, a reminder that mercy is always a choice with her and one she enjoys reminding you she does not always have to make.
When Sasha speaks again, it is longer and heavier, the cadence rolling and unbroken, words twining around you like a choke chain, and though she pretends the fury is absolute, you catch the small falter, the sharp inhale that betrays the insecurity stitched beneath the narcissism, and for just a moment, the act wavers before she pushes it back into place with a smirk that hides how much of her pride is armour instead of truth.
“You think I do not notice when you try to make this place yours, when you clutter my walls with things that do not belong, when you act like you have earned a share in something that has always been mine? Pathetic. Truly pathetic. And yet—somehow—you make me keep you.”