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Chapter Text

The Study: A Dance of Desire

Dion’s penthouse, midnight, the study—a sanctuary of mahogany bookshelves, leather-bound legal tomes, and the faint hum of the city below. A single lamp casts amber light over his desk, cluttered with merger contracts and a half-empty glass of bourbon.

The space hummed with the quiet tension of unspoken yearnings. Joshua slipped in, barefoot and reckless, wearing one of Dion’s oversized dress shirts, the collar slipping to reveal a constellation of fading hickeys.

His older brother sat at the desk, broad shoulders taut beneath a tailored shirt, his brow furrowed over financial reports. The air smelled of bourbon and restraint.

Joshua leaned against the doorframe, a smirk dancing on his lips. His voice was smooth as honey. “Working late again, big brother? Or just avoiding your bed?”

Clive didn’t look up, pen scratching furiously across the paper. “Go to sleep, Joshua.”

“Can’t. Dion’s in Dubai. The bed’s too cold.” Joshua padded forward, the shirt riding up his thighs. Clive’s jaw twitched. Joshua perched on the edge of the desk, deliberately knocking over a stapler.

“You’re drunk.”

“Buzzed. There’s a difference.” Joshua’s toe brushed Clive’s calf under the desk. “Remember that summer in Nice? When you taught me to swim? You held me so tight I thought I’d drown.”

Clive’s breath hitched. He was seventeen, Joshua twelve—sunlit skin, laughter like wind chimes. A memory he’d buried under a decade of guilt. “You were twelve.”

“And you were seventeen. God, you looked like a fucking Greek statue.” Joshua dragged a finger along the desk’s edge. “You still do.”

Clive finally met his gaze, eyes stormy. “Stop.”

“Make me.”

It’s a challenge, a spark. Joshua slid off the desk, circling behind Clive’s chair. His breath ghosted over Clive’s ear. “You’ve been staring at me for years. At family dinners. Pool parties. That time I wore those ripped jeans and you nearly choked on your scotch.”

His scent—sweet fig and nicotine—was a drug. Clive’s hands trembled. He’d fantasized about this: Joshua pliant beneath him, those sly smiles dissolving into gasps. But fantasies didn’t reek of betrayal.

Clive’s grip tightened on the armrest. “This isn’t a joke.”

“Never said it was.” Joshua’s hands settled on Clive’s shoulders, kneading the tension. Clive inhaled sharply—his brother’s touch was electric, practiced. “You think I don’t see how you look at me? Like you want to devour me whole.”

Clive’s resolve splintered. He caught Joshua’s wrist, spinning him around until his back hits the bookshelf. Leather-bound volumes shudder. “You have no idea what you’re playing with,” Clive growled, their faces inches apart.
Joshua’s grin was all teeth. “Then show me.”

Clive didn’t let go: “You’re with Dion.”

Joshua laughed low and throaty: “Thanks for reminding me.”

“This isn’t about him.” Clive’s other hand gripped Joshua’s hip, thumb pressing into the bone. “You’ve been teasing me since you learned what a hard-on was.”

Joshua laughed, breathless. “And you’ve been aching. Admit it.” He straddled Clive’s lap, fingers threading through his brother’s hair. “Admit it. You’ve wanted this. Wanted me.”

Clive’s resolve crumbled.

He crushed their mouths together, a clash of teeth and desperation. Joshua moaned, arching into him, all artifice stripped away.

Clive murmured against his lips: “You’ll ruin us.”

Joshua bit his jaw: “Then ruin me first.”

Clive has memorized the curve of his brother’s neck from a thousand stolen glances. At their Father’s funeral, when he wept into Clive’s coat. Last Christmas, when Dion kissed Joshua under the mistletoe Clive had to look away. For years, he has buried this under so-called missions and bourbon. But now…

Joshua arched against him, a soft gasp escaping as Clive’s knee slotted between his thighs. “You’re a bastard,” Clive mutters, voice ragged.

“Yours,” Joshua breathed.

Clive dragged him to the desk, sweeping papers aside. Joshua landed with a thud, the shirt rucking up to his waist.

Joshua’s deliberate slowness in unbuttoning Clive’s shirt, savoring each reveal. Clive’s hands, calloused from years of boxing, tremble as they map Joshua’s waist.

Clive loomed over him, chest heaving. “Last chance to run.”

Joshua hooked a leg around Clive’s waist, pulling him close. “Fuck. You.”

Clive’s laugh was dark, unraveling. “Oh, I will.”

Later, Joshua traced the sweat-slick planes of Clive’s chest, both of them sprawled on the Persian rug. “How long?” he murmured.

Clive stared at the ceiling. “I don’t know, Since Nice, maybe?”

Joshua stilled. “That long?”

Clive turned his head, gaze raw. “You were my responsibility. My weakness.”

Joshua kissed him—softer now, almost reverent. “Took you long enough.”

The highway unspooled before Clive like a gray ribbon, damp with dawn mist. He drove without a destination, knuckles white on the steering wheel. You’ve lost all control， he thought bitterly.

Joshua’s scent still clung to him—sweet fig and nicotine, a brand of cologne Dion had bought him last Christmas. Clive cranked the window down, letting the salt-kissed air of the Pacific Coast Highway scour his skin. It didn’t help.

Suddenly, memories he had buried deep within himself surfaced from nowhere.

Joshua, age 7, wobbling on a red Schwinn, training wheels freshly removed. Clive, 12, jogging beside him, hands hovering. “Don’t let go!” Joshua squealed. “I won’t,” Clive promised. But he did—just for a second—and Joshua careened into their mother's azaleas, blood blooming on his knee. When Clive carried him home, Joshua buried his face in his brother’s neck and whispered, “Don’t tell Dad.”

Clive’s jaw tightened. Back then, Joshua’s trust felt like a medal. When did it become a noose?

Joshua, 15, dripping wet in swim trunks, laughing as he cannonballed into the Rosfields’ backyard pool. Clive, 20, home on leave, pretended not to stare. “Race you!” Joshua challenged, all coltish limbs and sunburned shoulders. Clive let him win. Afterward, Joshua flopped onto a lounge chair, chest heaving. “You’re slowing down, old man.” Clive tossed him a towel. “Shut up, kid.”

The lie tasted sour now. He hadn’t slowed down. He’d restrained himself.

Joshua, 18, tipsy on stolen bourbon, sprawled across the hood of Clive’s pickup. “Take me somewhere,” he slurred, feet bare, shirt riding up. Clive, 23, fresh from Fallujah, gripped the wheel too tight. “You’re drunk.” Joshua’s laugh was a blade. “So drive me sober.”

When Clive peeled out of the driveway, Joshua whooped, head thrown back, throat exposed. Clive didn’t look.

He wanted to.

A horn blared. Clive swerved, heart hammering. Focus, you idiot.

When did it twist? Was it the day Joshua turned 21, slinking into Clive’s room at 2 a.m. to show off his new tattoo—Orion’s Belt inked along his hip? “Dion helped me pick the design,” he’d said as if Clive cared about Dion’s opinion. Or last month, when Clive walked in on Joshua changing, his brother smirking instead of covering up? “Relax, it’s just skin.”

No. It went deeper.

Clive had memorized Joshua’s tells—the way he bit his lip when lying, the flutter of his lashes when bored. He’d cataloged every bruise Dion left, every fake smile Joshua wore at family dinners. Guarding him, studying him, craving him, until the line between brother and something darker blurred.

Three weeks ago. Joshua cornered him in the garage, Dion’s Tesla charging silently. “You stare,” Joshua accused, backing Clive against the tool bench. “Like you’re hungry.” Clive’s pulse roared. “Back off.” Joshua didn’t. His palm slid up Clive’s thigh. “What’re you afraid of?”
The memory seared. Clive had shoved him away. Or had he pulled him closer?

Somewhere near Half Moon Bay, Clive pulled over, engine idling. The ocean churned below, violent and gray. He pressed his forehead to the wheel.

It wasn’t a single moment. It was a thousand—Joshua’s laughter, his defiance, his relentless need to be seen. Clive had spent years building walls, but Joshua scaled them like ivy, relentless and inevitable.

And Dion? Clive’s stomach twisted. Dion, who’d offered him a job, a couch, a life after the Marines. Dion, who trusted him.

His phone buzzed. A text lit up the screen:

Joshua: Where’d you go?

Clive stared at the message, thumb hovering over ‘Delete’.

Then he typed: Don’t wait up.

At a gas station outside Santa Cruz, Clive splashed water on his face. The mirror showed a stranger—hollow-eyed, stubble rough, lips still swollen from Joshua’s bite.

Another memory surfaced: Joshua, 16, sneaking into Clive’s room after a nightmare. “Can I sleep here?” he mumbled, already climbing under the covers. Clive had turned away, rigid. But Joshua’s hand found his in the dark, fingers threading tight. “You’re my favorite person,” he’d whispered.

-

Clive’s reflection in the mirror was a stranger—a man who betrayed every code he once swore by. The scent of Joshua’s cologne lingered on his skin, a cruel reminder.

You’re worse than the enemies you fought, he thought, scrubbing his hands raw under scalding water. His military discipline, once a source of pride, now feels like a lie.

He replayed the moment Joshua kissed him: the softness of his brother’s lips, the way his own resolve crumbled like ash. Incest isn’t just a sin; it’s a grenade that obliterated his self-respect. He punches the mirror, cracks spiderwebbing his fragmented face.

Guilt is a double-edged blade, Clive avoided Dion’s calls, each ringtone a judgment. He remembered Dion’s trust—how he welcomed Clive into his penthouse after his discharge and clapped him on the back like a brother.

Now, Clive’s the thief who stole his lover.

At night, he drafted texts to confess, deleting them before dawn.

And the worst, Joshua. Clive asked himself a thousand times: Did I take advantage? Joshua initiated it, but Clive’s older—should’ve stopped it. He hears Joshua’s laugh echoing in his mind, bright and reckless, and wonders if he’s corrupted something fragile.

There’s also desire. Desire is a live wire. It hummed in his veins when Joshua texts—Miss u, big brother—with a photo of his collarbone, Clive’s bite mark still visible.

Clive’s body betrayed him, arousal clashing with disgust. He memorized the curve of Joshua’s smile during family dinners, the way his silk shirts slipped off one shoulder. In his dreams, he pins Joshua against the Tesla’s cold steel again, Dion’s security cameras be damned. He wakes gasping, sheets tangled, hating himself for the ache that won’t fade.

Fear is a shadow of Dion’s face. Clive jumps at every knock, expecting hired men in black suits. He scrubs his browser history after researching VA housing, paranoid Dion’s tracking him.

At a charity gala, Dion gripped his shoulder too tight, golden eyes narrowed. “You look tense, Clive. Anything… bothering you?”

Clive’s pulse roars. He imagines the Nest Cam footage playing on every screen in the room, his shame broadcasted to Silicon Valley’s elite.

He runs midnight miles across the Golden Gate, combat boots pounding like a metronome for his guilt.

In the gun range’s silence, his hands shake. Bullets fly wide—a first for the marksman.

He cancels Sunday dinners, and claims “work,” but parks outside Joshua’s dorm, watching his light flicker until 3 AM.

“You’re a fucking cliché. The broken soldier, the predator. He’s your brother. Your blood. But when he looks at you—Christ, when he smiles—it’s not brotherly. And you… you’re weak. Weak then, weak now. Dion will burn you alive when he finds out. Deserves it. Deserves worse.”

Text Exchange:

Joshua: Dion’s in NYC. Come over?

Clive: Can’t.

Joshua: Liar. You’re outside. Saw your headlights.

Clive’s keys slipped from his grip. He leaned against his truck, head in hand. The door opens. Joshua stood there, Dion’s silk robe hanging off one hip.

“You hate yourself,” Joshua murmured, pressing a hand to Clive’s chest. “But you don’t hate this.”

Clive’s resolve snapped. Again.

He’s not afraid of Dion’s wrath.

He’s afraid he’ll choose this—choose Joshua—again and again until there’s nothing left to burn.

-

Golden Gate Park, Midnight

Clive’s boots crushed autumn leaves as he paced beneath the shadow of the Japanese Tea Garden gates.

“This is the last time, he muttered, breath fogging in the chill. His phone buzzed—a text from Joshua: “You’re late, brother.”

He found Joshua perched on a mossy stone, backlit by the moon, wearing Clive’s old Marine hoodie. It hung off one shoulder, revealing a collarbone still bruised from their last encounter.

“You came,” Joshua smirked, twirling a cherry blossom stem. “Again.”

Clive’s jaw tightened. “I shouldn’t have.”

Joshua’s fingers traced Clive’s knuckles, feather-light. “Dion’s in Palo Alto. Board meeting until dawn.”

Clive recoiled, but Joshua pressed closer, lips grazing his ear. “It’s okay, he likes to share.”

A lie, probably. Clive knew this. But his resolve cracked anyway.

They collided against the tree, bark scraping Clive’s palms. Joshua’s laugh was muffled by Clive’s mouth, the taste of stolen wine and nicotine between them. For a moment, guilt drowned in the heat of Joshua’s skin, the way he gasped “More—” like a prayer.

Afterward, Clive zipped his jacket with trembling hands. Joshua lighted a clove cigarette, smoke curling around his smirk. “You’re getting better at this. Less… hesitant.”

Clive’s stomach churned. Better at betrayal. Better at ruin.

Joshua leaned in, ash flicking into the wind. “Next time, let’s use Dion’s Tesla. I want to see if the autopilot can handle… distractions.”

Clive stood abruptly. “There won’t be a next time.”

Joshua’s laughter followed him into the dark. “Liar.”

Clive scrubbed Joshua’s scent off his skin in a shower stall stained with mildew. The water was scalding, but he still felt dirty.

His phone lighted up—a photo from Joshua: Dion’s bed, rumpled sheets, Clive’s dog tags glinting on the pillow. Caption: “Left him a present. Wonder if he’ll notice?”

Clive slammed the phone against the tiles. It cracked but did not break.

-

Dion’s Penthouse, 8 PM

Dion poured Clive a bourbon, eyes narrowed. “Joshua’s been… restless lately. You’ve noticed?”

Clive’s grip tightened on the glass. “He’s young.”

“Hmm.” Dion sipped his drink, gaze slicing to Joshua, who was sprawled on the sofa sketching Clive’s profile. “He admires you. Too much, perhaps.”

Joshua met Clive’s eyes, tongue darting over his lip. Dangerous.

Clive drained his bourbon. “I should go.”

Guilt is a cage.

Desire is the key.

Clive lets himself out, again and again.

Chapter Text

The Provocation

Joshua Rosfield had always been a creature of contradictions—a tempest of beauty and restlessness wrapped in silk and smoke. At twenty-three, his face graced the covers of underground art magazines, his lithe frame draped in designer fabrics that clung to him like a second skin. Many fell at his feet, drawn to the danger in his laugh, and the way his cerulean eyes seemed to promise ruin. But none had ever held him—not truly—until Dion Lesage.

Dion, with his golden gaze and hands that run an empire, well, an empire his father built, had been the first to see past Joshua’s artifice. “You’re like a Matisse painting,” he’d murmured on their first date, fingers brushing the pulse point at Joshua’s wrist. “All wild color and hidden structure.” Joshua had scoffed, but his heart had stuttered.

Now, two years later, Joshua lay tangled in Dion’s 800-thread-count sheets, watching dawn bleed through the penthouse windows. Dion’s arm draped possessively over his waist, his breath warm against Joshua’s neck. Safe. Loved.
And yet.

Joshua’s phone buzzed on the nightstand. A text from Clive: “Missed you at the gym today.”

He swallowed, guilt sour on his tongue.

Flashback: Two Years Earlier

They met at a gallery opening in SoMa. Joshua, then twenty-one, had been the star of his own exhibit—Electric Shadows, a series of oil paintings exploring desire and decay. Critics called him “a young Basquiat with a death wish.”

Dion arrived late, a storm in a Brioni suit. He’d lingered before Joshua’s centerpiece: a self-portrait of the artist submerged in black water, hands clawing toward a fractured light.

“It’s about drowning,” Joshua said, materializing beside him with a glass of champagne. “In expectations. In… hunger.”

Dion turned, and Joshua felt the weight of his attention like a physical touch. “No,” Dion replied. “It’s about control. The light’s not saving him—it’s mocking him.”
Joshua’s smirk faltered. Dion’s smile was a blade. “Let me buy you dinner.”

Dion didn’t chase. He curated.

Weekends in Paris, private viewings at MoMA, a custom-designed studio in their penthouse where Joshua could paint “without distractions.” When Joshua’s ex, a trust-fund poet, showed up drunk at their door, Dion had him removed by discreet security. “You deserve better than scavengers,” he said, pressing a kiss to Joshua’s knuckles.

Joshua reveled in it—the stability, the devotion. But stability, he soon learned, could feel like a cage.

-

Clive’s return from overseas had been a grenade tossed into Joshua’s carefully constructed life.

The older brother Joshua hadn’t seen in three years appeared on their doorstep one rain-lashed night—broader, harder, a scar cutting through his stubble.

Dion, ever the strategist, offered him the guest suite. “Family is family,” he’d said, though his smile didn’t reach his eyes.

At first, Clive was a shadow. He trained at dawn, avoided parties, and spoke in monosyllables. But Joshua noticed the way Clive’s gaze followed him—during Sunday brunches, by the infinity pool, once when Joshua emerged from the shower in nothing but a towel.

Old memories resurfaced: Clive teaching him to ride a bike at twelve, hands steady on Joshua’s hips. Clive at seventeen, shirtless and glistening after mowing the lawn, Joshua’s face burning as he looked away.

Hunger.

The First Transgression.

It happened in the studio.

Joshua, high on edibles and ennui, had been painting Clive’s profile—the strong jaw, the furrowed brow. Clive walked in, sweat-damp from the gym.

“You’re using too much vermillion,” Clive muttered, reaching to adjust Joshua’s brush.

Joshua caught his wrist. “Since when do you know art?”

Clive froze. Joshua’s thumb grazed his pulse. “Since I spent a decade trying to forget you,” Clive said hoarsely.

The kiss was inevitable. Yet it only happened in their imagination, both of them.

Dion had always prided himself on his intuition. As a venture capitalist, he’d built a career on sniffing out lies and half-truths in boardrooms. But this… this was personal.

It started with Joshua.

Late one night in Dubai, Dion had video-called Joshua from his suite at the Burj Al Arab, only to be met with a breathless, “Can’t talk right now—working on a painting!” The screen had flickered to darkness too quickly, but not before Dion caught the glint of dog tags around Joshua’s neck—Clive’s dog tags.

Then there were the bruises.

When Dion returned home, Joshua greeted him in a silk robe that slipped just enough to reveal a fresh bite mark high on his thigh—a mark Dion knew he hadn’t left. Joshua’s excuse? “Got carried away at the gym.” But Dion had seen Clive’s truck idling outside their penthouse that morning.

The final thread was Clive himself.

Clive, who now flinched when Dion clapped him on the shoulder. Clive, canceled their weekly sparring sessions. Clive, whose eyes lingered a beat too long on Joshua’s lips during family dinners.

Clive, once a steady presence at their penthouse, now vanished whenever Dion entered a room. The air between them thickened with unspoken tension, sharp enough to slice through Dion’s polished composure.

Dion’s suspicions deepened as a whisper.

A missed call when Joshua claimed to be “asleep.”

Clive’s sudden interest in modern art, attending gallery openings he’d once mocked.

Dion said nothing. He observed.

He Tested.

Dion hosted a charity auction at the penthouse. Joshua, in a sheer Saint Laurent shirt, held court by the grand piano.

A tech CEO—billionaire, recently divorced—lingered too close, fingers brushing Joshua’s elbow.

“Careful,” Dion murmured, handing Joshua a gin fizz. “Vultures circling.”

Joshua laughed, bright and false. “Jealous?”

“Never.” Dion’s smile was serene, but his grip on Joshua’s waist tightened. “I know you’d never betray me.”

Across the room, Clive drained his whiskey in one swallow.

The Nest Camera.

Dion discovered the affair on a Tuesday.

It was 3 p.m. in Shanghai when the Nest app alerted Dion to the motion in the study. He swiped open the feed, expecting Joshua’s insomnia-driven sketching. Instead, he saw Clive.

The camera captured it all: Joshua straddling Clive’s lap, fingers tangled in his brother’s hair, Clive’s hands gripping Joshua’s hips like a lifeline. Dion’s breath froze. He watched, numb, as Joshua leaned in to whisper something that made Clive’s resolve crumble—their kiss desperate, hungry, familiar. The footage showed Clive pinning Joshua to the desk, Joshua’s head thrown back in ecstasy.

His knuckles whitened around his phone, rage boiling beneath his skin. But he didn’t call. Didn’t scream.

Dion watched, cold and still until the video ended. Then he replayed it. And replayed it.

His first instinct was violence—to break Clive’s jaw, to drag Joshua by his hair and demand answers.

But he didn't lose control—he orchestrated

Love, after all, was a siege. And Dion Lesage had never lost a war.

Dion had always prided himself on control. As a billionaire heir with a mind sharper than the knives in his Michelin-starred kitchens, he’d built empires on calculated risks. But Joshua Rosfield—his lover, his wildfire—had scorched that control to ash.

As he watched the Nest Cam footage—Joshua’s fingers tangling in Clive’s dog tags, Clive’s growl muffled against Joshua’s throat—his grip shattered the crystal tumbler in his hand. Blood dripped onto the Carrara marble, a crimson Rorschach blot.

Dion’s jealousy festered not just at Clive’s betrayal, but at his own helplessness. He’d spent nights pacing his penthouse, replaying security footage of Clive pinning Joshua against the study wall, Joshua’s laughter sharp as shattered glass.

He’s mine, Dion seethed. But how do you cage a phoenix?

He rewound. Played it again. And again.

By dawn, Dion had a plan.

Dion took Joshua to the St. Regis for croissants and Veuve Clicquot. He wore his most disarming smile, the one that closed billion-dollar deals.

“You’ve been distant,” Dion said, buttering a pastry. “Anything you want to tell me?”

Joshua sipped his mimosa, eyes flicking to the chandelier. “Just stressed.”

Dion’s smile tightened.

Liar.

Dion’s Penthouse, 9 PM

Dion poured Joshua a glass of Château Margaux, his touch lingering on the stem. “You know you can tell me anything, darling.”

Joshua laughed, high and brittle. “Since when do you play therapist?”

“Since I noticed you flinching when I touch you.” Dion’s voice was velvet, but his eyes were steel. “Since you started wearing Clive’s hoodie to bed.”

Joshua froze, wine sloshing. “It’s just a hoodie.”

“Is it?” Dion cupped Joshua’s cheek, thumb brushing his lower lip. “Tell me the truth, and I’ll forgive you.”

Joshua’s laugh was a cracked bell. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

Dion staged a romantic weekend in Napa—private vineyard, silk sheets, Joshua’s favorite Cabernet. Under the stars, he traced Joshua’s jaw. “Trust is everything to me,” he murmured. “You’d tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”

Joshua’s lips met his, sweet with wine. “Always.”

But that night, Dion woke to an empty bed. He found Joshua on the balcony, phone glowing as he typed.

Dion hosted a gala at the penthouse, Silicon Valley’s elite swirling in black tie and lies. He watched Clive stiffen as Joshua leaned into him, laughing at some private joke. Dion’s fingers tightened around his champagne flute.

Later, he cornered Joshua in the library. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Clive,” he said, voice deceptively soft.

Joshua shrugged, all innocence. “He’s family. You’re not… jealous, are you?”

Dion’s mask slipped—just for a second—as he gripped Joshua’s wrist. “Should I be?”

Joshua’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

That night, Dion rewound the Nest footage again. Joshua’s moans, Clive’s guilt-stricken face—it played like a taunt. His fist slammed into the wall, pain radiating up his arm.

A day later.

Dion’s penthouse, midnight found Clive pacing, the city’s skyline a cold spectator beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. His throat burned with something sharper than thirst. He poured a drink, the ice clinking like a dare.

Then he heard it.

A moan.

High, breathy, unmistakably Joshua.

It slithered under Dion’s bedroom door, down the hall, through the cracks in Clive’s resolve.

“Dion—ah—!”

Clive froze, glass trembling in his hand. The bourbon tasted like ash.

Another moan, louder now. Joshua’s voice frayed at the edges, a melody Clive knew too well—had known, before Dion’s name repeated again and again

The penthouse’s silence had been a lie.

Now it throbbed with the rhythm of Joshua’s voice: a gasp, a whimper, Dion’s name bitten off in a way Clive had never heard before. Not playful. Not performative. Real.

Clive's knuckles whitened around the bottle. Sweat prickled his nape, cold and slick. The city’s skyline blurred beyond the windows, lights smearing like tears.

Clive’s feet moved before his mind could protest. The plush carpet muffled his tread—before he halted. Dion’s bedroom door stood ajar, golden light spilling onto the marble. Shadows danced against the wall: Dion’s broad back, Joshua’s arched spine, hands fisted in silk sheets.

Clive’s hand hovered over the doorknob. Joshua’s moan crescendoed, a sound that hollowed him out. Dion’s voice followed, low and possessive: “Mine.”

The metallic tang of blood as Clive bit his tongue. The thud of his heartbeat was louder than their coupling.
Dion’s cologne—vetiver and arrogance—clinging to the air.

He could almost see Dion smirking, unbothered, and asking, “Jealous, Rosfield?”

Clive staggered back, bourbon sloshing over his wrist.

The guest bathroom welcomed him with clinical indifference. He collapsed before the toilet, retching until his ribs ached.

His reflection in the toilet bowl: a gaunt stranger with his brother’s eyes.

Clive crawled back to bed. The moans had quieted, replaced by the hum of the AC—Dion’s doing, no doubt.

Soundproofing activated. Erasing Clive’s presence.

He refused to entertain the thought that this was Dion's deliberate show of dominance, asserting his claim over Joshua.

He curled into himself, knees to chest, a child’s posture.

The sheets reeked of his own sweat, not Joshua’s sweet fig.

He closed his eyes, the ghost of Joshua’s laughter echoing as sleep dragged him under—This isn’t a scene—it’s an autopsy. Clive’s love, is dissected and found rotting at the core.

(04/02/2025)

Chapter Text

Dion Lesage’s Penthouse, San Francisco

The city pulsed below like a caged beast, its skyline a jagged crown of glass and steel. Dion stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows, a tumbler of 25-year-old Macallan untouched in his hand. On the desk behind him, a tablet glowed with silent footage—Joshua in Clive’s arms, their bodies tangled in the dim light of a downtown loft. Dion’s thumb hovered over the screen, freezing the frame where Joshua’s lips brushed Clive’s scarred jaw.

Pathetic, Sylvestre’s voice hissed in his mind. You let a stray dog steal your prize.

Dion drained the whisky, its burn was a fleeting distraction. He hadn’t survived his father’s cutthroat tutelage to falter now. Joshua was his. Clive was a complication. And complications required precision.

Flashback: Two Years Earlier

Lesage Estate, Geneva

The study reeked of bergamot and betrayal. Sylvestre Lesage leaned back in his wingback chair, a cigarillo dangling from his fingers like a skeletal threat. “The Rosfield boy is a liability. A distraction.”

Dion didn’t blink. “His name is Joshua. And he stays.”

Sylvestre’s laugh was a dry rasp. “You think this is about your little crush? It’s about legacy. You’ll hand our empire to a painter who can’t even keep his clothes on for a gallery opening.”

Dion’s knuckles whitened. He remembered Joshua’s first exhibit—oil-stained hands, a smirk sharp enough to slice through the pretension of SoMa’s elite. “You don’t own me,” Joshua had hissed that night, even as Dion bought every canvas to keep them from vultures.

“He’s mine,” Dion said, the words a blade.

Sylvestre stood, his shadow swallowing the room. “Then you’re a fool. Cut him loose, or I’ll cut you from the will.”

Dion rose, buttoning his Brioni suit with deliberate calm. “Disinherit me. See if I care.”

The slam of his father’s fist followed him out. He never looked back.

Present

The penthouse hummed with sterile silence. Joshua was asleep in the master suite, curled into silk sheets that still smelled of Dion’s cologne. Clive’s dog tags lay on the nightstand—a taunt, a trophy. Dion had found them last week tucked under Joshua’s pillow, the metal warm from his skin.

He opened the Nest app, rewinding the loft footage. Clive’s hands on Joshua’s waist, Joshua’s laugh muffled against his brother’s throat. Dion zoomed in, noting the way Clive’s fingers trembled. Guilt, he thought. Good.

But guilt alone wouldn’t save them. Dion needed a scalpel, not a hammer.

Flashback: Eighteen Months Earlier

Joshua’s Studio, San Francisco

Dion had found him on the floor, wrists raw, surrounded by slashed canvases. “They called me a fraud,” Joshua whispered, paint smeared like war paint across his cheekbones.

Dion knelt, gloves discarded, and cradled Joshua’s face. “They’re insects. I’ll burn their galleries.”

Joshua’s laugh was broken. “Why? To prove you own me?”

“To prove you’re worth owning.”

The words had tasted like victory then. Now, they curdled.

Flashback: One Year Earlier

Private Jet, En Route to Dubai

Sylvestre’s call had come mid-flight. “You’re a joke,” he spat. “Chasing a boy who’ll never love you.”

Dion had stared at Joshua asleep in the adjacent seat, champagne still staining his lips. “Love is for poets. I’m a businessman.”

Present

Joshua emerged from the bedroom, tousled and barefoot, wearing nothing but Dion’s robe. “Who was here?”

“No one,” Dion lied, tucking a curl behind Joshua’s ear. “A delivery.”

Joshua’s eyes narrowed. He knew. Of course, he knew. But he leaned into Dion’s touch anyway, a predator-scenting weakness. “Liar.”

Dion’s grip tightened. “Careful, darling.”

Joshua laughed, low and dangerous, before sauntering to the piano. His fingers danced over the keys, a Debussy piece Dion had commissioned for his birthday. A gift, not a chain, he’d insisted. But gifts, like people, could be reshaped.

Flashback: One Year Earlier

Lesage Holdings Boardroom

Sylvestre’s proxy had voted against Dion’s merger. “Sentiment,” the man sneered, “is a liability.”

Dion dissolved the board the next day.

Present

The text came at dawn: “You’re expected in Geneva. Immediately.”

Sylvestre’s command, no greeting. Dion stared at the screen, Joshua’s warmth still lingering in the sheets beside him. His father’s games were tedious but necessary. Let the old man posture. Dion held the better hand.

He dressed slowly, selecting a suit sharp enough to draw blood. At the door, he paused, watching Joshua sleep—a masterpiece of contradictions, beautiful and brittle.

Mine, Dion thought, the word a vow.

The city awaited, indifferent. But Geneva? Geneva would burn.

Joshua’s Loft, San Francisco

The loft felt cavernous without Dion. Joshua lay sprawled on the velvet divan, staring at the cracked ceiling where a water stain bloomed like a Rorschach inkblot. His phone buzzed—a text from Dion’s assistant, crisp and impersonal: “Mr. Lesage is in Geneva. Return date undetermined.”

Joshua’s thumb hovered over the screen. Undetermined. The word slithered into his ribs, cold and serpentine. He tossed the phone aside, listening to the echo of traffic four stories below. Dion’s cologne still lingered on the pillows, vetiver and bergamot, a ghost of possession.

He reached for Clive’s dog tags, left tangled in the sheets after their last reckless afternoon. The metal was warm, imprinted with the weight of guilt. Dion doesn’t know, Joshua reminded himself. He can’t.

But the loft felt smaller these days, the walls closing in with every lie.

Flashback: Two Years Earlier

Lesage Estate, Geneva

Sylvestre Lesage had summoned Joshua like a servant. The study reeked of mahogany polish and disdain. “You’re a distraction,” Sylvestre said, not looking up from his ledger. “My son has a legacy to uphold. You’re… transient.”

Joshua leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. “And you’re a cliché. Rich patriarch, crumbling morals. Should I pose for a portrait? Call it The Death of Decency.”

Sylvestre’s pen stilled. “You think your wit impresses me? Dion will tire of you. They always do.”

Joshua’s smirk faltered. They. The word conjured faceless ghosts—lovers, sycophants, pretty things Dion had collected and discarded.

“He’s not you,” Joshua said, too sharply.

Sylvestre’s laugh was a dry crack. “No. He’s worse.”

Present

Joshua’s fingers trembled as he lit a clove cigarette, the flame catching the edge of a sketchbook. Inside, half-finished drawings of Dion bled into charcoal smudges—Dion at the piano, Dion in the shower, Dion’s hands curled around a whiskey glass like it was a throat.

He texted Clive: “You free?”

No reply.

Typical. Clive’s guilt had turned him into a monk, all brooding silences and canceled plans. Joshua flung the sketchbook across the room. It hit the wall, pages fluttering like wounded birds.

His phone buzzed again—a notification from the gallery. His latest collection, Fractured Light, had sold out. Dion’s doing, no doubt. Even absent, he curated Joshua’s life like a exhibit.

Control freak, Joshua thought, but the anger rang hollow. He missed Dion’s ruthlessness, the way he’d orbit Joshua’s chaos like a star pulling a comet into its gravity.

Flashback: Two Years Earlier

Saint-Tropez, 3 AM

Dion had found him on the yacht’s bow, drunk on stolen champagne and the Mediterranean moon. “You’ll fall,” Dion said, gripping Joshua’s waist.

Joshua leaned back, the sea wind tangling his hair. “Would you jump in after me?”

“No.” Dion’s hands tightened. “I’d drain the ocean first.”

Joshua laughed, but the words clung—a promise, a threat.

Present

The loft door creaked open. Clive stood in the threshold, shadows hollowing his cheeks. “You shouldn’t be here,” Joshua said, not moving from the divan.

Clive’s gaze flicked to the dog tags on the floor. “Neither should you.”

Joshua stretched, the silk robe slipping off one shoulder. “Dion’s in Geneva. His father summoned him.”

Clive flinched. Sylvestre’s name was a grenade pin between them. “You think he knows?”

“About us?” Joshua smirked. “If he did, you’d be floating in the Bay.”

Clive didn’t smile. “This has to stop.”

“Why? Because you can’t handle it?” Joshua rose, closing the distance. His fingers brushed Clive’s jaw, the scar there a relic of Fallujah. “Or because you want me to beg?”

Clive caught his wrist. “You’re playing with fire.”

Joshua leaned in, lips grazing Clive’s ear. “Then burn with me.”

Flashback: One Year Earlier

Dion's Penthouse, Midnight

Sylvestre had called during dinner. Dion silenced the phone, but Joshua saw the name. “He’ll never accept me,” Joshua said, swirling his wine.

Dion didn’t look up from his steak. “I don’t require his acceptance.”

“But you want it.”

Dion’s knife screeched against the plate. “I want you. The rest is noise.”

Joshua hid his shudder in a sip of Bordeaux.

Present

Clive left before dawn, guilt clinging to him like sweat. Joshua watched from the window as his truck vanished into the fog. His phone lit up—a news alert: Lesage Heir in Geneva for an Emergency Shareholder Meeting.

Joshua’s stomach lurched. Emergency. The word tasted like Sylvestre’s fingerprints.

He scrolled through old texts with Dion, their exchanges sterile compared to the fever of Clive’s. “Don’t work too late.” “The Monet exhibit is yours.” “Wear the blue suit tonight.”

No "I miss you". No "I love you". Dion’s affection was a vault, locked and coded.

Joshua typed a message, deleted it, and tried again: “Come home.”

No reply.

Flashback: Six Months Earlier

Napa Valley, Midnight

Dion had pinned him against the vineyard’s stone wall, fingers bruising his hips. “You’re mine,” he growled as if the words could rewrite reality.

Joshua arched into him, nails scoring his back. “Prove it.”

Later, Dion traced the scratches with clinical detachment. “You’ll need to cover these for the gala.”

Joshua laughed, but the sound fractured.

---
Present

The gallery opening was a farce. Critics circled like vultures, their praise tinged with schadenfreude. “Where’s your patron?” one sneered, nodding at Dion’s empty seat.

Joshua drained his champagne. “Busy buying your magazine.”

He left early, the city’s chill seeping through his leather jacket. Clive’s loft was dark, but Joshua climbed the fire escape anyway. He pressed his palm to the glass, fogging it with his breath. Inside, Clive slept fitfully, dog tags glinting on his bare chest.

Joshua’s fist clenched. Coward.

His phone buzzed—a photo from Dion: a Geneva balcony, the Alps jagged and indifferent. No caption.

Joshua’s knees buckled. He slid down the wall, the metal railing biting into his spine. Come home, he wanted to scream. Fight for me.

But Dion didn’t fight. He conquered.

Flashback: Two Years Earlier

Joshua’s First Exhibit, SoMa

Dion arrived as the crowd thinned, his Brioni suit cutting through the bohemian chaos. “Well?” Joshua challenged, gesturing to the shattered mirrors and blood-red canvases.

Dion studied the centerpiece—a self-portrait of Joshua drowning in black oil. “It’s about control,” he said. “The light isn’t saving you. It’s mocking you.”

Joshua’s pulse spiked. “You’re wrong.”

Dion’s smile was a blade. “Am I?”

Present

Joshua woke to dawn bleeding through the loft’s grimy windows. His phone showed twelve missed calls from an unknown Geneva number. Sylvestre’s doing, no doubt.

He dressed mechanically—Dion’s discarded shirt, Clive’s dog tags hidden beneath. The city outside was a blur of fog and taillights.

At the pier, he stared into the Bay’s gray depths. Jump, the water whispered. See if he drains the ocean.

His phone rang. Dion’s name glowed like a lifeline.

Joshua answered, silent.

“I’m returning tomorrow,” Dion said, no greeting.

“Why?”

A pause. Static crackled like distant fire. “You’re mine.”

The line went dead.

Joshua sank to his knees, laughter tearing from his throat—raw, broken, alive.

As the apex predator, a master tactician of the hunt, Dion Lesage moves with a chilling blend of patience and precision. Every action is a calculated step in an invisible chessboard, his instincts honed to dissect weaknesses in the environment, the rhythms of his prey, and the whispers of opportunity. He does not lunge in desperation or fury; his strikes are born from meticulous preparation, a convergence of timing, angle, and lethal intent. Shadows cling to him like allies, masking his presence until the final, irrevocable moment.

When he attacks, it is a blur of ruthless efficiency—a serpent’s speed. His teeth, honed to cruel perfection, slice through flesh and bone before the victim’s nerves can scream a warning. The world narrows to a split second of cold realization, too late to matter.

His dominance lies not in brute force but in the art of patience and control over human emotions.

Chapter Text

Dion’s Penthouse, San Francisco

The private elevator ascended in silence, its mirrored walls reflecting Dion’s impassive face. A black Hermès box sat at his feet, its contents meticulously chosen: a platinum Cartier bracelet engraved with J.R., a vintage first edition of Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell, and a bottle of Clive’s cologne—vetiver and salt, the scent Joshua wore like a second skin when he thought Dion wasn’t looking.

Dion’s lips twitched. Let the boy play his games. Soon, he’d learn who held the strings.

The doors slid open. Joshua stood at the piano, barefoot and backlit by the city’s glow, fingers hovering over the keys of a piece Dion had commissioned for his last birthday. Clair de Lune. Moonlight. Fitting.

“You’re late,” Joshua said, not turning.

Dion set the Hermès box on the marble console. “Forgive me. Geneva was… tedious.”

Joshua’s laugh was a blade. “Did you bring me a souvenir?”

“See for yourself.”

Joshua tore into the box with practiced nonchalance, but Dion noted the hitch in his breath as he lifted the bracelet. “Cartier? How… predictable.”

“It’s platinum. Scratch-resistant.” Dion stepped closer, trailing a finger down Joshua’s spine. “Like you.”

Joshua shivered, the bracelet clinking as he fastened it. “And the book?”

“A reminder.” Dion flipped to a dog-eared page, his voice low. “I accustomed myself to simple hallucination: I saw very frankly a mosque in place of a factory…”

Joshua snatched the book, cheeks flushing. “You think I’m hallucinating?”

“I think you’re bored.” Dion cupped his chin, thumb brushing the pulse point. “Shall we remedy that?”

Dion took him against the piano first, the discordant notes of crushed keys harmonizing with Joshua’s gasps. He was relentless, methodical—biting the juncture of neck and shoulder where Clive’s marks had faded, pinning Joshua’s wrists with the bracelet’s cold metal.

“Missed me?” Dion murmured, lips grazing his ear.

Joshua arched, nails scoring the piano’s lacquer. “Fuck you.”

Dion smiled. “Later.”

He carried Joshua to the bedroom, the city’s skyline a silent witness. Joshua was pliant now, drunk on the attention he’d starved for in Geneva’s shadow. Dion mapped every inch of him, relearning the topography of moles and scars, the way Joshua’s breath hitched when Dion’s teeth grazed his hip, there.

Afterward, Joshua lay spent, sweat-damp hair fanned across Dion’s chest. “You’re different,” he mumbled.

“Am I?” Dion traced the bracelet, the engraving catching the light.

“Softer.”

Dion’s laugh was a rumble. “Don’t confuse strategy with sentiment, darling.”

Flashback: Geneva

Lesage Holdings Office

Sylvestre had slid a dossier across the desk. “The Rosfield boy and his brother. Pathetic.”

Dion didn’t glance at the photos—Joshua laughing in Clive’s truck, Clive’s hand on Joshua’s thigh. “Your point?”

“Your pet’s indiscretions. Disgusting.”

“Your spies are slipping. These are weeks old.”

Sylvestre’s face purpled. “You’ll let him humiliate you?”

Dion stood, straightening his cuffs. “I’ll let him think he’s winning.”

“You’re being played.”

Dion stood, buttoning his coat. “Then I’ll play better.”

Over the next week, Dion curated Joshua’s life like a gallery exhibit.

He gifted him a studio in SoMa, its floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Bay. “For your… inspiration,” Dion said, knowing Clive’s loft faced a brick wall.

He funded Joshua’s Fractured Light exhibit, ensuring every critic received a dossier of Clive’s military records. Let them whisper, Dion thought. Let him squirm.

Dion fucked him nightly, a ritual of reclamation.

In the shower, he pinned Joshua against the tiles, water sluicing over Clive’s fading bite on his shoulder. “Who do you belong to?” Dion growled.

Joshua’s laugh dissolved into a moan. “You—”

“Louder.”

“You!”

In the study, Dion bent him over the mahogany desk, scattering merger contracts. “Tell me you missed this,” he demanded, fingers bruising Joshua’s hips.

“I—ah—missed this—”

A half-truth. Dion rewarded him with a punishment masquerading as pleasure.

Clive watched from the shadows, as Dion intended.

He saw Joshua’s new bracelet glint at the gallery opening, noticed the way Dion’s hand lingered at the small of Joshua’s back. He knows, Clive thought, downing his whiskey. He has to.

But Dion merely nodded at him across the room, a king acknowledging a pawn.

Later, Clive texted Joshua: “We need to talk.”

No reply.

-

Joshua floated through the days, drunk on Dion’s attention. The gifts, the sex, the way Dion’s eyes darkened when Joshua wore Clive’s cologne—he’s jealous, Joshua thought, smug. He’s finally fighting.

He didn’t notice the Nest Cam in the new studio, didn’t question why Dion’s driver “coincidentally” passed Clive’s gym each morning.

At night, he traced Dion’s scars—the bullet graze from Riyadh, the knife wound from Marseille—and almost forgot to miss Clive’s rough hands.

Almost.

Dion saved the best for last.

A weekend in Monaco, aboard the Eos, the Lesage family yacht. Joshua stood at the helm, the Mediterranean wind tangling his hair. “Why here?”

Dion wrapped his arms around him, lips brushing his ear. “To remind you.”

“Of what?”

“How small you are without me.”

Joshua laughed, but the sound died as Dion pressed a key into his palm—a villa in Nice, steps from the beach where Clive had taught him to swim.

Joshua’s throat tightened, but he didn’t say a word.

That night, Dion took him on the deck under a starless sky. He was brutal, and exacting, his grip leaving bruises in the shape of his initials.

Afterward, Joshua lay trembling, the villa key digging into his fist.

Dion lit a cigarillo, the ember casting hellfire shadows.

Joshua’s laugh was broken. “You’re a monster.”

“No.” Dion exhaled smoke, watching it curl into the void. “I’m the man who owns you.”

-

Clive’s Gym, San Francisco — 3:17 PM

The weight room stank of bleach and testosterone. Clive stood shirtless before the floor-to-ceiling mirror, fists wrapped like a boxer’s manifesto, hammering a punching bag with the rhythm of a man exorcising ghosts. Sweat glistened on the scar that cut through his ribs—a souvenir from Fallujah, though the wound that festered now was far deeper.

The bag swung wildly as the door clicked open. Dion stepped inside, crisp in a Kiton suit, a manila folder tucked under his arm. Clive froze, the bag’s chains groaning.

“You’re predictable,” Dion said, leaning against the dumbbell rack. “Mondays: bench press. Wednesdays: sparring. Fridays: punishing yourself for fucking my boyfriend.”

Clive’s knuckles cracked. “Get out.” The command cracked like a whip.

Dion smiled, slow and serpentine. He tossed the folder onto a bench. Inside: Nest Cam stills of Clive and Joshua—half-dressed in the studio, tangled in the Tesla, Joshua’s teeth sinking into Clive’s shoulder.

“You’ve been careless,” Dion said.

Clive’s pulse roared. He snatched the photos, crumpling them in his fist. “What. Do. You. Want?”

Dion unbuttoned his cuffs, rolling his sleeves with lethal calm. “Sit.”

Clive remained standing, a wolf refusing the trap. Dion circled him, the folder a blade between them.

“I could leak these,” Dion said, tapping a photo of Joshua straddling Clive’s lap. “The press would feast. War Hero Corrupts Billionaire’s Lover. Brotherly Love Turns Toxic. So many angles.”

Clive’s jaw flexed. “You won’t.”

“No?” Dion stepped closer, his cologne—vetiver and ice—smothering the gym’s stench. “Because you think I care about Joshua’s reputation? Or yours?”

Clive’s laugh was a growl. “Try it.” He stepped closer, sweat and rage thickening the air. “You think your threats scare me? I’ve owned every second I’ve had with him.”

“You’re forgetting who funds his life. His art. His addictions.”

Clive’s fist twitched. Dion caught his wrist, grip steel. “Sit. Now.”

“Make me.” Clive yanked free, chest heaving, eyes blazing.

Dion perched on the bench’s edge, legs spread, a king on a thrift-store throne. “Here’s the dilemma: I don’t want to lose him. You don’t want to break him. So we’ll… collaborate.”

Clive’s laugh was hollow. “You’re insane.”

“Am I?” Dion slid a USB drive across the bench. “Watch.”

The video played on Clive’s phone: Joshua, drunk and giggling, tracing Clive’s scars in the Tesla. “You’re my favorite sin,” Joshua murmured, lips brushing Clive’s ear.

Dion paused it. “He’s a child. Spoiled. Reckless. He needs structure.”

Clive stared at the frozen frame. “And you’re offering…?”

“A lesson.” Dion leaned in, voice dropping to a purr. “One only we can teach.”

Clive glanced at the photo—Joshua asleep on his chest: “What do you want?”

Dion leaned forward: “I want you to hurt.” A beat. “But Joshua would hate me for it. So instead, you’ll help me fix him.”

Clive snarled: “He’s not broken.”

Dion smiled coldly: “No? Then why does he keep setting fires just to watch us burn?”

Clive’s fists clenched. Dion pressed on.

Dion: “You love him. So do I. But he’s a fucking addict, Clive. Addicted to chaos. To us. And we’ve been his enablers. You think you’re the first? He’s been using that pretty face to wreck men since he was 16. The difference is, I don’t pretend to hate it.”

“Bullshit! You only met him when you were 21.”

“Yeah, but I’m my father’s son.”

Clive stayed quiet.

Dion swiveled his chair, golden eyes glinting. “Three years ago, a critic called Joshua’s work ‘derivative.’ My father firebombed his gallery. The man’s daughter was inside. She lost 60% of her skin.” He leaned forward, voice dropping to a blade’s edge. “You think he’d hesitate to break Joshua?”

Clive’s throat worked. “Joshua’s your—”

“Nothing to him. A pawn.” Dion stood, circling Clive like a shark.

Clive’s resolve cracked. “And you want my…”

“Cooperation. My father plans to give him a dose at the Monaco gala. GHB in his champagne. Then gift-wrap him for Barnabas Tharmr.”

Clive’s calm shattered. “Bullshit.”

Dion didn’t blink. “Barnabas has a… taste for broken things. He’d film it. Leak it. Humiliate me. Destroy Joshua.”

Clive lunged, pinning Dion against the shelf. “You’re sick.”

Dion laughed, breath hot with Macallan. “Sick? Or pragmatic?” He nodded to the screens, where Joshua now slept shirtless in Clive’s loft. “You think I enjoy this? Watching you touch what’s mine?” His hand slid to Clive’s belt, mocking. “But I’d rather share than lose him to a man who’ll carve him into pieces.”

Clive recoiled. “You’re lying.”

“Am I?” Dion pulled a syringe from his pocket—translucent liquid, a label scrawled Midazolam. “Recognize this? Your brother’s cocktail of choice last summer. Courtesy of Sylvestre’s private pharmacy.”

Clive’s stomach lurched. Joshua’s “accidental” overdose at the Hamptons—the paramedics, the hushed ER visit. Dion had blamed it on tequila.

“He’ll slip it into Joshua’s drink next Friday,” Dion said. “Then hand him to Barnabas like a party favor.” He stepped closer, lips grazing Clive’s ear. “Unless we teach Joshua his place first.”

Clive’s fist connected with the wall. “I’m not your fucking executioner.”

“No.” Dion caught his wrist, squeezing until bone creaked. “You’re his salvation. The only one he’ll listen to.”

Dion played the footage—Sylvestre’s voice, crisp and venomous, ordering a subordinate: “Make sure the Rosfield boy remembers his place this time.”

Clive’s knees buckled.

Dion steadied him, grip deceptively gentle. “We stage a lesson. Controlled. Precise.”

“A lesson,” Clive echoed, hollow.

Dion’s smile was a scalpel. “We’ll make it… convincing.”

Clive’s roar shook the room. “He’s your lover!”

“And you’re his weakness!” Dion slammed a dossier onto the desk—bank records, Clive’s VA loan denials, Joshua’s frantic texts. “You think I don’t know? The nights you park outside his dorm. The way you smell his fucking hoodie.” He gripped Clive’s jaw. “You’re an addict. And I’m offering you a hit.”

Clive wrenched free. “Go to hell.”

“Already there.” Dion pulled up security footage—Barnabas’ dungeon-like penthouse, chains bolted to the floor. “This is Plan B. Sylvestre’s real gift.”

Clive’s breath hitched.

Clive collapsed into the Chesterfield, head in his hands. “He’ll hate us.”

“He’ll hate us more if Barnabas brands him like livestock.” Dion knelt, clasping Clive’s trembling hands. “You think this disgusts me? I’ve watched you both for months. The way he shakes for you. The way you break for him.” His thumb brushed Clive’s pulse. “This isn’t just a punishment. It’s… curation.”

Clive’s laugh was broken. “You’re a monster.”

“No.” Dion pressed the syringe into his palm. “I’m the man who’ll save him. Again.”

Dion’s punishment won’t be a duel. It’ll be a masterpiece of humiliation and desire—a lesson neither Rosfield brother will forget. And he’ll make sure Clive helps him deliver it.

（20/02/2025）

Chapter Text

Dion's Penthouse, San Francisco — 8:45 PM

The elevator doors sealed behind Dion with a hushed click, leaving Joshua alone in the penthouse’s glacial silence. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city sprawled like a circuit board bleeding neon, indifferent to the quiet unraveling within. Dion’s departure had been theatrical—a lingering kiss at the door, a murmur about an “urgent board meeting in Dubai,” and the deliberate snap of his briefcase closing over the USB drive containing Clive’s military records. A prop. A lie.

Joshua slumped against the cold glass, Dion’s cologne clinging to his collar. His phone buzzed—a text from Clive, stark against the darkness:

Clive: Need to see you. Dion’s gone. Penthouse. Now.

Joshua’s thumb hovered. A trap? A reprieve? He typed, Why?

Clive: Can’t do this anymore.

The reply was a siren’s call. Joshua’s pulse quickened.

Clive’s Truck — Sometime early

Clive gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles blanched, the ghost of Dion’s voice slithering through his mind: “Make him believe it’s his choice.” The plan was simple: Lure Joshua to the penthouse. Let him think Clive had finally chosen him over guilt. Then, Dion would emerge—the viper from the shadows—and together, they’d break Joshua’s defiance. A “lesson” in control.

“You’re pathetic, Clive,” Dion drawled, his voice low enough to carry over the lapping waves of the Pacific. “You’ve been watching him since he was twelve—can’t even wait until he’s legal.”

Clive’s jaw clenched. “This isn’t about—”

“Isn’t it?” Dion cut him off, stepping closer until their boots almost touched. “You think I don’t know about the way you touch him when you think no one’s looking? The way you watch him sleep?” He reached out, brushing a thumb over Clive’s bruised knuckles—the ones he’d used to pound the mirror in his bathroom after their last encounter. “You want him, Marine. Admit it.”

Clive’s throat tightened. Dion was right, but hearing it spoken aloud stripped away the last vestiges of denial. He’d spent years fighting this—denying it, burying it beneath missions and bourbon. But Joshua… Joshua was a wildfire he couldn’t outrun.

Dion’s smile turned predatory. “So here’s the deal. You take him to my penthouse tonight. Let him think it’s his choice. And when he’s begging for your cock…” Dion’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I’ll be waiting.”

Clive recoiled. “You can’t—”

“Oh, I can.” Dion’s phone pinged, and he glanced down at the screen. “Joshua’s on his way. Oh—and Clive?” He leaned in, breath hot against Clive’s ear. “If you try to warn him… You know the consequence, that's not something anyone can afford.”

Clive’s phone lit up—Joshua’s location pinged at the penthouse. He exhaled, tasting bile.

You’re saving him, he told himself. From Sylvestre. From Barnabas. From himself.

The lie tasted like ash.

Dion’s Penthouse — 9:35 PM

Joshua paced the master bedroom, Clive’s dog tags clenched in his fist. The room reeked of Dion—vetiver and bergamot, the crisp starch of untouched sheets. He’d come because Clive asked. Because he was weak. Because he craved the collision of guilt and desire that only his brother’s hands could deliver.

The elevator chimed.

Clive stepped into the penthouse, all coiled tension and storm-cloud eyes. He didn’t speak, didn’t smile. Just strode to the bar, poured two fingers of bourbon, and drained it.

“Well?” Joshua leaned against the bedroom doorway, smirk brittle. “You said you couldn’t do this anymore. So do something.”

Clive’s gaze raked over him—Dion’s silk robe, the bruises from Monaco faded to shadows. “Take that off.”

Joshua laughed, sharp and bright. “Since when do you give orders?”

“Since now.” Clive closed the distance, fingers knotting in the robe’s belt. “You want honesty? Here it is.”

The kiss was a detonation—all teeth and desperation, Clive’s hands dragging him backward onto the bed. Joshua arched into him, nails scoring his shoulders. “Finally,” he gasped, but Clive silenced him with a growl, pinning his wrists above his head.

“You don’t get to talk,” Clive muttered, lips trailing the scar on Joshua’s collarbone. “You don’t get to lie.”

Joshua writhed, half-laughing. “Since when do you—ah—play rough?”

Clive froze. A floorboard creaked.

The closet door swung open.

Dion stepped into the room.

Joshua’s breath hitched. Dion leaned against the doorframe, immaculate in a charcoal suit, his golden eyes glinting with icy triumph. The USB drive—the prop—dangled from his fingers.

“Hello, darling.”

For a heartbeat, the world stilled. Joshua’s gaze darted between them—Clive’s guilt-stricken silence, Dion’s predatory calm. Betrayal curdled in his chest. His cerulean eyes gleamed with malice.

Joshua whirled around. “What the fuck is this?”

Dion stepped forward, his polished Oxfords clicking against the floor. “A lesson.”

“You…” Joshua shoved against Clive, but his brother’s grip tightened. “You fucking liar—”

Dion circled the bed. “You love an audience, mon phénix. Tonight, you’ll perform for two.”

“Jealousy’s a bad look, darling.”

“Joshua—don’t.”

“You wanted this. Now you’ll learn the cost.”

Dion unbuttoned his shirt slowly, deliberately. “You think this is a game? Let’s play.”

“No! Get off me! let go, Clive! Fucking let go!”

Dion tutted, pocketing the drive. “Language, Joshua. Clive’s just… enlightened.” He strolled to the bed, trailing a hand over the silk sheets. “Did you really think he’d choose you? Over duty? Over decency?”

Joshua spat in his face.

Dion wiped his cheek slowly, smile never faltering. He nodded at Clive. “Hold him.”

Clive’s hands locked around Joshua’s wrists, forcing him flat against the mattress. Joshua thrashed, laughter fraying into panic. “Let go—Clive, let go—”

“You did this,” Clive hissed, voice raw. “You made us—”

“Us?” Joshua’s knee jerked upward, catching Clive’s ribs. “There’s no us! You’re just his fucking dog—”

Clive flinched but didn’t release him. “It’s for your own good.”

“My own good?” Joshua laughed, hysterically. “You’re both insane—”

Dion gripped his jaw, forcing their eyes to meet. “You’re a wildfire, Joshua. Beautiful. Destructive. But even wildfires need boundaries.” He nodded to Clive. “Strip him.”

“No—!” Joshua bucked as Clive yanked the robe open, exposing the pale planes of his chest, humiliation burned hotter than fear. “Stop—Clive, stop—”

Clive’s hands trembled, but he obeyed, peeling the silk from Joshua’s shoulders. Dion watched, a sculptor assessing marble. “Look at you. All that defiance… and yet here you are. Ours.”

Joshua lunged, teeth sinking into Clive’s forearm. Clive cursed, grip slipping—just enough for Joshua to twist free. He bolted for the door, bare feet slapping cold marble.

Dion’s voice lashed like a whip. “Catch him.”

Joshua skidded into the hallway, heart hammering. The elevator—had to reach the elevator—but Dion’s security system flashed red. Biometric lock engaged.

“Fuck—!” He veered toward the stairs, but Clive tackled him from behind. They crashed into a side table, a Ming vase shattering beside them.

Joshua backed toward the door, but Clive blocked his path. “Clive—move,” he hissed, panic sharpening his voice.

Clive’s hand shot out, gripping Joshua’s wrist. “I can’t.”

“Let me go!” Joshua twisted, slamming his elbow into Clive’s ribs. Clive grunted but held firm, his Marine reflexes overriding guilt. Dion closed in, trapping Joshua between them.

“You think you can play us against each other?” Dion purred, circling Joshua like a wolf. “You think I didn’t see your texts? Your little games?”

Joshua’s eyes darted to the exit, calculating. In a flash, he lunged—but Dion caught him by the hair, yanking him back. Joshua cried out, clawing at Dion’s hand as Clive seized his other arm.

“Stop fighting,” Clive growled, his voice ragged. “It’ll be worse if you fight.”

“Worse?” Joshua spat, thrashing as Dion forced him toward the bedroom. “You’re both fucking monsters—”

“Enough games.” Dion nodded toward the bedroom. “Bring him.”

Clive dragged Joshua inside, kicking and cursing. Dion followed, locking the door. The master bedroom felt smaller now—a gilded cage.

Joshua fought like a feral thing: elbows jabbing, nails raking Clive’s neck, teeth snapping at Dion’s fingers. But they were stronger. Always stronger.

Dion gripped his hair, forcing him onto the bed. “Hold his legs.”

Clive hesitated—a split second too long. “Now, Marine.”

Clive obeyed, pinning Joshua’s legs to the mattress. His brother’s breaths came in shallow, terrified bursts, his body trembling beneath Clive’s weight.

“Please,” Joshua choked, voice muffled against the sheets. “Clive, don’t—”

But Clive didn’t let go, pinning Joshua’s ankles. Joshua’s struggles weakened, his limbs turning leaden.

Dion rolled him onto his back, tracing the hollow of his throat. “Look at him, Clive. So pretty when he’s helpless.”

Clive couldn’t look away. Joshua’s eyes fluttered, tears streaking his cheeks as he slurred, “H-hate… you…”

Dion laughed, unbuckling his belt. “You’ll thank me later.”

Dion’s penthouse bedroom was a temple to decadence—low amber lighting, silk sheets the color of bruised twilight, and the faint hum of a playlist curated to blur pain into pleasure. Dion stood at the foot of the bed, rolling up his sleeves with deliberate slowness, his gaze raking over Joshua’s sprawled form. Clive’s jaw clenched, fists trembling at his sides.

Joshua taunted: “What’s the plan? Good cop, bad cop? Or just bad cop, worse cop?”

Dion slid a hand up Joshua’s thigh. “We’re not cops. We’re your judges.” His fingers dig into Joshua’s hip. “And your sentence… is us.”

“Strip him,” Dion ordered, nodding at Clive. “Slowly.”

Joshua arched a brow, lounging against the pillows like a bored prince. “Why bother? You’ll just rip it off anyway.”

Dion’s smile was a knife. “Oh no, cheri. Tonight, we savor.”

Clive approached, fingers brushing the silk of Joshua’s robe. His brother’s pulse fluttered beneath his touch, a betraying rhythm.

“Nervous, Clive?” Joshua purred, tilting his head. “Or just excited?”

Clive didn’t answer. He undressed Joshua with clinical precision, every inch, every touch, a silent apology.

When the last scrap of fabric fell, Dion stepped forward, trailing a fingertip down Joshua’s sternum.

“Look at you,” Dion murmured. “A masterpiece.”

Joshua’s laugh was honeyed poison. “Flattery won’t make you better in bed.”

“But you’ll learn.”

“Learn what?”

“A lesson.”

“Lesson? Is this your idea of punishment? I’d call it a reward.”

“Would you?”

Dion’s dominance was a velvet vise. He pinned Joshua’s wrists above his head with one hand, the other mapping his body like a cartographer claiming new land. His mouth followed—biting, sucking, leaving rose-gold marks that bloomed like ink in water.

“You’re mine,” Dion whispered against Joshua’s thigh. “Every sigh, every shiver. Mine.”

Joshua writhed, but his smirk never wavered. “Yours? Please. You’re just renting.”

Dion’s grip tightened. “Beg.”

“For what?” Joshua’s breath hitched as Dion’s teeth grazed his hip. “Your mediocre technique?”

Clive flinched, but Dion only laughed. “You’ll beg. They always do.”

He nodded at Clive. “Hold him.”

Clive obeyed, his hands cradling—not restraining—his brother’s shoulders. Joshua’s eyes flicked up, a flicker of surprise melting into something warmer.

“Traitor,” Joshua mouthed, but his hips arched into Dion’s touch.

Dion worked Joshua open with ruthless patience, fingers slicked with oil that smelled of jasmine and sin. “Tell me you want it,” he commanded, crooking his fingers.

Joshua’s laugh dissolved into a gasp. “Fuck you—”

Dion added a third finger, twisting. “Beg.”

Joshua’s back bowed off the bed, a choked moan escaping. “D-Dion—”

“Louder.”

“Dion—”

“Pathetic,” Dion taunted, but his voice thickened. He sheathed himself in one smooth thrust, swallowing Joshua’s cry with a kiss.

Clive watched, torn between fury and hunger, as Joshua’s nails scored his forearms. “Look at me,” Clive growled, cupping Joshua’s face. “Look. At. Me.”

Joshua’s gaze locked onto his, hazy with lust and defiance. “Enjoying the show, big brother?”

Clive’s thumb brushed his lip. “Always.”

Dion’s pace was relentless, each snap of his hips designed to unravel. Joshua’s composure fractured—whimpers spilled out, his legs hooking around Dion’s waist to pull him deeper.

“There it is,” Dion breathed, triumphant. “No more jokes. No more lies. Just… this.”

Joshua’s retort died as Dion hit that spot, his voice breaking. “Fuck—!”

“Beg,” Dion repeated, slowing to a maddening grind. “Or I stop.”

Joshua’s laugh was ragged. “You won’t. You’re too… ah… addicted.”

Dion stilled. “Try me.”

For a heartbeat, silence. Then Joshua’s resolve crumbled. “Please.”

Dion’s grin was feral. “Please… what?”

Joshua’s nails dug into Clive’s arms. “Fuck me. Now.”

“Since you asked so nicely.” Dion snapped forward, wrenching a scream from Joshua’s throat.

Clive leaned down, his lips grazing Joshua’s ear. “You’re doing so good,” he murmured, a secret between them.

Joshua shuddered, his climax crashing over him like a riptide. “Dion—Clive—”

Dion followed, spilling into him with a groan. “Mine,” he growled. “Say it.”

Joshua’s eyes fluttered open, post-coital haze sharpening into a smirk. “Congratulations. You’ve… ah… earned a participation trophy.”

Dion chuckled, withdrawing. “Still bluffing, cheri?”

Joshua stretched lazily, sweat glistening on his skin. “Bluffing? This was a reward. You just… don’t know it yet.”

Joshua lay sprawled on his back, Dion’s teeth marks blooming like violets on his throat.

Dion straddled his hips, trailing a fingertip down Joshua’s heaving chest.

“Your turn, Marine,” Dion purred, glancing at Clive, who stood rigid by the door. “Show me how a Rosfield claims what’s his.”

Clive’s jaw twitched. The guilt was a vise, but beneath it simmered something darker, hungrier. Joshua met his gaze, lips swollen and smirking intact. “Scared, big brother?”

“Never,” Clive lied.

Dion rolled off Joshua with a smirk, settling against the headboard like a king observing his court. “Go on. He’s all yours.”

Clive approached, every step heavy with conflict. Joshua’s eyes tracked him, bright with challenge. “What’s the matter, Clive? Need a roadmap? Or you only dare to fuck me when he’s not around?”

Clive silenced him with a kiss—rough, desperate, a decade of denial crumbling. Joshua arched into it, his bound hands fisting in Clive’s hair. Dion watched, fingers idly tracing Joshua’s thigh.

“That’s it,” Dion murmured. “Take what you’ve always wanted. No more hiding.”

Clive’s hands shook as he positioned himself. Joshua’s breath hitched—a fleeting crack in the armor—before he laughed. “Finally. Took you long enou—”

Clive sheathed himself in one thrust, swallowing Joshua’s gasp. Dion leaned in, capturing Joshua’s lips, his tongue mapping the moan Clive ripped from his brother’s throat.

“Who’s fucking you right now, cheri?” Dion whispered, biting Joshua’s lower lip.

Joshua’s hips rolled, torn between Clive’s pace and Dion’s grip on his jaw. “D-Dion—”

“Wrong answer.” Dion tightened his hold. “Try again.”

Clive’s thrusts turned punishing, his hands bruising Joshua’s hips. “Say it,” he growled.

Joshua’s laugh dissolved into a whimper. “You—both of you—”

Dion’s smile was triumphant. “Better.”

They moved in tandem—Dion’s mouth on Joshua’s neck, Clive’s hands pinning his wrists, the bedframe’s rhythm a metronome of ruin. Joshua’s composure frayed, his taunts melting into pleas.

“Fuck—! S-Slower—”

“No,” Dion breathed against his ear. “You don’t get to choose.”

Clive’s grip tightened, his voice ragged. “Who do you belong to?”

Joshua’s back arched, his body a bowstring pulled to breaking. “N-No one—”

Dion’s hand slid down Joshua’s stomach, stroking him in time with Clive’s thrusts. “Liar.”

Joshua came with a cry, his release streaking Dion’s fingers. Clive followed, collapsing against Joshua’s chest as Dion claimed his mouth in a victory kiss.

The air in the master bedroom hung thick with the musk of sex and salt-slicked skin, Dion’s victory kiss broke with a predator’s grin.

He glanced at Clive, whose breath still heaved against Joshua’s sweat-slicked chest. How quaint that the former Marine still believed he could compartmentalize this—could fuck Joshua with brotherly restraint while Dion carved his own claim between the Phoenix’s thighs.

“You think we’re done, Marine?” Dion purred, watching Clive’s throat bob as his gaze dropped to where Dion’s fingers circled Joshua’s flushed, twitching entrance.

The boy was still loose from their earlier efforts, Dion’s patience in stretching him with three oil-slicked fingers now evident in the pliant give of muscle beneath his touch. But not loose enough. Not for what came next. Joshua’s breath hitched when Dion’s pinky teased alongside his rim, the added pressure a silent promise. “He’s barely warmed up.”

Clive stiffened, eyes darting between Dion’s smirk and Joshua’s defiant glare. “He’s not—we’re not—”

“Coward,” Joshua taunted, though the tremor in his voice betrayed him as Dion’s fingertip breached him again, shallow and maddening. His nails dug into the sheets, his thighs trembling where they bracketed Dion’s hips. “All bark, no bite.”

Dion’s laugh was a velvet threat. It ignited something primal in him, the same hunger that had driven him to corner Joshua in the study last week—back pressed against cold windows, Dion’s knee forcing his legs apart as he desperately wanted to whisper exactly how he’d break Clive’s treasure, how he’d make Clive watch.

He gripped Clive’s wrist, guiding his hand to Joshua’s hip. “Hold him. Here.”

His other hand spread Joshua wider, exposing him completely, still glistening with oil and spend. The sight punched a groan from Clive, raw and wanting.“You take what’s yours,” he murmured, lips grazing Clive’s ear as he positioned himself. The blunt head of his cock pressed against Joshua’s rim, savoring the fluttering resistance. “I’ll take what’s mine.”

“We will.” Clive’s voice startled them both. “But not until he’s loose enough to take us without tearing.” His calloused hands replaced Dion’s, working Joshua open with Marine’s discipline.

“Christ, you’re tight,” Clive muttered, sweat beading his neck. “Breathe through it.”

Joshua shuddered, forehead pressed to Clive’s sternum. “S’not… pain…”

Clive’s resolve snapped. He hauled Joshua onto his side, back pressed to Clive’s chest, legs hooked over Dion’s shoulders. Joshua’s laugh dissolved into a sharp gasp as Dion’s cockhead nudged his entrance. “D-Dion, wait—!”

“No waiting,” Dion hissed, sinking in with torturous precision, ruthlessly. The burn was exquisite—muscle yielding through the ache, Joshua’s body fighting to accommodate the stretch even as Clive, ever the dutiful brother, pushed into him from behind. Joshua writhed, overstuffed and trembling, every shift driving both cocks deeper. “Fuck—! T-Too much—!”

Dion’s palm smothered Joshua’s scream as their twin invasion deepened in, hips flush against his trembling ass. “You wanted this,” Dion snarled, teeth scraping Joshua’s shoulder. “Begging for us to ruin you, non? Now take it.”

Joshua’s body was a live wire between them, every ragged breath vibrating through Dion’s grip.

“Look at him,” Dion panted, fingers bruising Joshua’s thighs. “Made for this. Takes it like he’s starved.”

Clive’s response was a guttural noise, forehead pressed to Joshua’s spine. Every snap of Dion’s hips pushed Joshua deeper onto Clive’s cock, a feedback loop of possession.

They breached him in increments—Clive’s cockhead nudging alongside Dion’s shaft, both pausing as Joshua’s body clamped down. “Look at me,” Dion ordered, tilting Joshua’s chin up. “You wanted this. Now take it.”

Clive’s hands framed Joshua’s hips, anchoring him. “Sink back on me. Slow.”

The slide was scalding, a white-knuckle fusion of flesh.

Joshua choked as they bottomed out, twin groans reverberating through him. Dion’s composure fractured first, he snapped his hips, driving Clive deeper. “There… that’s your brother’s cock splitting you open…”

Clive’s forehead dropped to Joshua’s shoulder, restraint crumbling.

Joshua shuddered. He couldn't breathe right. They're so big, bigger than anything he's ever taken, and he's going to feel this in the morning. He's going to feel this for days.

"You're so perfect," Dion purred and bit Joshua’s lips as he and Clive both thrust.

They found a jagged rhythm—Dion’s thrusts timed to Clive’s retreats, stretching Joshua impossibly fuller with each pass.

“God… s’too much…” Joshua babbled, clawing the sheets.

Dion kissed him savage and sweet. “You’ll survive. You always do.”

Clive’s thrusts came jagged and unsteady, his brother’s name a shattered litany against sweat-damp skin. “Joshua. Joshua.”

“Oui, just like that,” Dion purred, snapping his hips harder, forcing a scream from Joshua’s muffled lips, his oversensitive nerves sparking with every brutal drive.“Feel him? How he shakes for us?”

Clive’s answer was a possessive snarl, teeth sinking into Joshua’s shoulder as if to anchor them both. Dion reveled in the sting of Clive’s jealousy—the way the Ex Marine’s hands trembled even as he hauled Joshua tighter against his chest.

You need this, Dion thought, watching Clive’s pupils swallow blue irises whole. Need to see him come apart. Need to prove he’s more than your fragile little brother.

Joshua’s body burned, split between white-hot fullness and the crushing weight of their twin hunger.

His hands twisted in the sheets, his usual barbs reduced to shattered whimpers. Dion tore his hand away, demanding, “Who owns you?”

“You—!” Joshua choked, arching as Clive’s cock dragged over his prostate.

“Both of us,” Clive growled, the words a vow against Joshua’s pulse.

Dion’s pace turned brutal. “Again.”

“Both—! Fuck, both of you—!” Joshua sobbed, his climax tearing through him violently, untouched.

He came so hard that his vision blacked out and he couldn't stop his body from shaking or himself from clinging to the other two. They fucked him through it, fucked him to the root until he couldn’t tell who was with him anymore.

Dion followed with a roar, spilling deep as Clive’s hips stuttered, filling Joshua until he dripped.

They collapsed in a fevered tangle, Joshua’s breath hitching with every aftershock. Dion watched, sated and smug, as Clive brushed damp bangs from Joshua’s brow—a tender gesture at odds with the bruising grip he’d maintained minutes prior.

“Easy,” Clive murmured when Joshua flinched at their withdrawal, the loss of fullness drawing a broken sound from his throat. “We’ve got you.”

But Joshua’s eyes had gone glassy, his fingers spasming against Clive’s arm. “T-Tired,” he slurred, pupils blown wide beneath fluttering lashes.

Dion caught him as he slumped, Joshua’s weight sudden and boneless against his chest. “Joshua—?”

No answer but the shallow rise of his ribs. Clive’s panic flared, fingers pressed to Joshua’s neck. “His pulse is—Dion, what did we—?”

“Hush,” Dion snapped, though his own heart thundered. He cradled Joshua closer, thumb stroking the fevered curve of his cheek. “He’s spent, not broken.” Still, he pressed a kiss to Joshua’s damp temple, the gesture startling in its softness. “Rest, little bird. We’ll keep you.”

Clive’s arms encircled his brother, his guilt and wonder pressing into the silence.

（15/03/2025）

Chapter Text

Dawnlight cut through the blackout curtains like a scalpel. Joshua stirred awake in a cage of intertwined limbs—Dion’s arm slung possessively over his waist, Clive’s calloused hand still gripping his wrist. The scent of bourbon and sweat clung to the sheets. Memory flooded back in a nauseating wave: Clive’s teeth at his throat, Dion’s laughter vibrating against his spine, the way they’d pinned him between them like hunters dividing prey.

“Let go!” He writhed, elbow connecting with Dion’s ribs. Silk sheets tangled around his ankles, cold as interrogation shackles. Clive’s Marine reflexes kicked in—a forearm slammed him back into the mattress, big brother’s morning erection pressing hot against his thigh.

Dion’s chuckle was velvet-worn and satisfied. “You weren’t this skittish last night, darling.” His thumb brushed the bite mark on Joshua’s collarbone—Clive’s claim, etched over Dion’s fading bruises. Their eyes met over Joshua’s head, some unspoken pact thickening the air.

When Clive scooped him up, bath towel rough against his bare skin, Joshua sank his teeth into the old scar on his brother’s shoulder. Iron bloomed on his tongue—salt and gunpowder and guilt. Clive’s muscles tensed, a low rumble in his chest: “Harder. Might cover the scratches you left yesterday.”

In the bathroom, steam curled like ghosts. Joshua huddled in the shower corner, watching water sluice off Clive’s battle-scarred back.

"Arms up." Clive's command softened at the edges, a general's order turned supplicant's plea. Joshua stood motionless under the spray, water sluicing off the taut planes of his abdomen. Naked as the day the doctor had pulled him from their mother's womb—all porcelain skin and tremors he couldn't control.

Clive's calloused palm skimmed Joshua's flank, mapping the geography of their sin. Crescent moons bloomed over his right ribs—Dion's signature, pressed deep into the canvas of his brother's flesh. Clive's thumb rubbed the worst one, a possessive counter-stamp. "He marked you here," he murmured, more to himself than Joshua, "like a fucking claim tag."

Joshua shuddered but didn't pull away. Clive took it as permission to trace lower, fingers skating the jut of his hipbones. The water turned pink where it ran off Joshua's inner thighs—micro-tears Clive's own hunger had caused last night. His gut twisted. Should've gone slower. Should've stopped.

But Joshua had begged faster, deeper, more—

"Look at me." Clive tilted his brother's chin up, thumb catching a droplet on his lashes. Joshua's gaze stayed fixed on the drain, where evidence of their shared crime swirled. "Sun's up," Clive tried, softer now, brushing damp strands from Joshua's forehead. "Time to—"

"Wash your filth away?" Joshua's laugh ricocheted off subway tiles. "Bit late for that."

Clive reached for the medicated soap, lathering it between his palms until they smelled like a hospital corridor. "Arms. Up."

This time, Joshua obeyed—a marionette with cut strings. Clive's hands moved with mortician's solemnity, scrubbing every place Dion had touched. Behind the knees, where Joshua's skin bruised like overripe peaches. The dip between his shoulder blades, still imprinted with Clive's teeth.

When he reached the cleft of Joshua's ass, Clive paused. His brother's breath hitched, a fractured sound that arrowed straight to Clive's groin. "I got you, little phoenix."

The old nickname cracked something. Joshua’s lashes lifted, blue eyes glassy with defiance and something hotter, darker. Clive’s breath caught. Same look he gave me at 16 when I caught him with my dress shirt blue in his bed.

Water sluiced between them as Clive rinsed suds from gold-streaked hair. His knuckles brushed the love bite Dion had left on Joshua’s neck. A growl built in his chest, foreign and primal. Mine. Should’ve been mine.

"Turn around." Clive’s voice roughened, hands settling on narrow hips. Joshua stiffened but obeyed, forehead pressed to chilled tile. Clive knelt, combat knees protesting the marble, and traced the curve of his brother’s spine. Bruises flowered at the small of his back—finger-shaped, his own from holding Joshua down while Dion—

"Don’t." Joshua’s first word since dawn, brittle as ice.

Clive pressed a kiss to the jut of his hipbone. "Just cleaning. Promise." he rasped, more vow than assurance. The body wash was unscented, clinical, but his hands turned worshipful as they glided over trembling thighs. Joshua’s breath hitched when Clive reached the sticky mess between his legs.

"Easy," Clive soothed, spreading him gently. His middle finger circled the clenching rim, slick with medicated soap. "Gotta make sure nothing’s…" Left inside you. Left by him. The thought choked him. "Just relax."

Joshua’s nails scraped tile. "S’your fault I need this."

The accusation hung between them, sharp as the bayonet Clive had carried in Fallujah. He pushed in slowly, knuckle-deep, feeling the flutter of overstimulated muscle. "I know," he breathed, rotating his wrist with a medic’s precision. "And I’ll fix it. Always fix it."

Another finger joined, scissoring gently. Joshua’s knees buckled. Clive caught him with an arm around his waist, chest flush against his brother’s back. "Shh, I’ve got you." His lips found the shell of Joshua’s ear. "Remember when you got that fishhook stuck in your palm? Seven years old, sobbing but refusing to let the doctor touch you?"

A shaky exhale. Clive curled his fingers, coaxing out the evidence of last night’s transgression. "Made me promise not to tell Dad. Held you through the whole damn thing." White streaks swirled down the drain. "You bit my shoulder so hard it scarred."

Joshua’s laugh was a broken thing. "Still did it. Still fix me."

Clive worked him open slowly, clinically, watching his own thick fingers disappear into the clench of his brother's body. The water couldn't wash this away—the way Joshua's back arched unconsciously, the choked-off whine as Clive's fingertips brushed that spot.

"Almost done," Clive lied, scissoring wider. His other hand splayed across Joshua's stomach, holding him upright. "You're doing good. So good."

Joshua's laugh came out a sob. "You'd know, wouldn't you? How good I take it?"

The words hung between them, barbed and true. Clive withdrew his fingers, slick with more than soap. For one fractured second, he considered tasting them—owning this last intimacy. Instead, he reached for the handheld showerhead.

"Lean forward."

Joshua stiffened. "No."

"Joshua."

"Fuck your guilt-driven sponge bath." He turned abruptly, water sluicing down his chest. Clive's gaze snagged on the bite mark over his left nipple—his teeth, his sin. "You want absolution?" Joshua grabbed Clive's wrist, pressing his still-slick fingers against the lewd pout of his mouth. "Then swallow it."

Clive recoiled like he'd been shot. The showerhead clattered against the tile, spraying wild arcs across the glass.

In the sudden silence, Joshua smiled—beautiful and broken. "Too honest for you, hero?"

Clive stilled. The water turned lukewarm, or maybe it was the ice flooding his veins. He withdrew his fingers, turning Joshua to face him. "Look at me."

He didn’t.

"Look. At. Me."

Cerulean fire met gunmetal blue. Clive cradled his brother’s face, thumb brushing the split in his lower lip—Dion’s ring had done that, he realized. His vision tunneled.

"I’d burn the world," Clive whispered, "to keep you whole."

Joshua’s laugh scalded. "You shattered me first."

The truth hung between them, naked as their bodies. Clive reached for a towel, wrapping Joshua with the same care he’d once reserved for field-dressing wounds. When his brother swayed, he lifted him effortlessly—thighs around his waist, damp cheek pressed to the Semper Fi tattoo over Clive’s heart.

At the vanity, Clive applied antibiotic ointment to every mark, every violation. Joshua stared at his own reflection, tracking Clive’s hands as they drifted lower.

"Open." A touch to his inner thigh.

"No."

"Joshua—"

"No."

Clive exhaled through his nose. "Then let me just—"

"I said no!" Joshua shoved back, towel pooling at his feet. The angry flush down his chest betrayed him. "You don’t get to… to clean your conscience out of me."

Clive advanced, cornering him against the fogged mirror. "This isn’t about guilt."

"Liar." Joshua’s palm hit his sternum. "You’re worse than Dion. He owns me. You… you remake me."

The kiss was inevitable—desperate and salt-tinged, Clive’s hands framing his little brother’s face like something sacred. Joshua bit his lip until blood bloomed, but Clive only deepened it, swallowing the whimpers.

When they broke apart, Clive rested their foreheads together. "Every scar," he panted, "every fucking bruise—I’ll kiss them all. But I won’t apologize for keeping you."

Joshua’s fingers dug into his biceps. "Even if I hate you?"

"Especially then."

The knock startled them both. Dion’s voice slithered under the door: "Hate to interrupt this touching reunion, but the croissants are burning."

Clive felt Joshua’s pulse rabbiting against his palm. Ours, he thought, pressing a final kiss to the corner of his brother’s mouth. Always ours.

Breakfast was a minefield, each gesture loaded with unspoken tension. Dion stood rigidly at the gleaming espresso machine, his dove-gray Tom Ford shirt immaculate, sleeves rolled with military precision to expose the watch Joshua had given him last Christmas.

The kitchen hummed with the hiss of steam and the clatter of porcelain, sunlight slicing through the blinds to illuminate the sterile perfection of the marble countertops. Dion’s hands moved with robotic efficiency, cracking eggs into a copper bowl, and whisking them into a golden froth. The omelet, when he flipped it, arched in a flawless parabola, landing with a whisper in the pan. Michelin-star technique, honed during their trip to Paris—back when shared silences felt comfortable, not charged.

“Eat,” Dion commanded, sliding the plate across the quartz with a sharp scrape. His voice softened, though the edge remained. “You barely touched dinner last night.”

Joshua stared at the food, the truffle-infused folds of egg glistening under pendant lights. His throat tightened. Dion’s cooking had always been a love language, but now it felt like a weapon—a reminder of expectations unmet, of a distance neither knew how to bridge. The watch caught the light as Dion leaned forward, knuckles whitening on the counter.

Joshua stared at the artfully arranged berries. Dion’s tenderness was worse than cruelty. He hurled his orange juice—glass shattered, liquid bleeding across the marble. “Stop pretending!”

Dion wiped pulp from his Patek Philippe, calm as a sniper adjusting scope. “Pretending what? That you didn’t beg us to ruin you?” His gaze flicked to Clive, who was white-knuckling a coffee mug. “Or that he’s not still hard for you?”

The mug cracked. Clive’s coffee pooled black as oil spills. Heart rate spiking—126 bpm, his watch flashed—the same as during the Fallujah ambushes.

Joshua stood, chair screeching. His robe gaped, revealing his slim legs. “Look at you both.” A laugh frayed at the edges. “The hero who fucks his brother,” he jabbed Clive’s chest, “and the prince who gets off on sharing.”

Dion’s knife split a yolk. Gold oozed, obscene. “Every fairytale needs monsters, darling.” The blade turned toward Clive. “Even recycled ones.”

When Clive’s mug finally shattered, blood welled where ceramic bit his palm. Joshua was on him in a heartbeat—tongue lapping crimson, lips sealing wounds. Dion’s roar shook the penthouse: “Enough!”

The fridge hummed. Dion yanked Joshua onto the quartz counter, the chill of the stone seeped through Joshua’s thin shirt, a stark contrast to the feverish panic clawing up his throat. Dion loomed over him, a champagne bottle glinting in his free hand—Dom Pérignon, 2008, his favorite vintage. The label blurred as Joshua’s vision swam.

“You want chaos?” Dion’s voice was a velvet knife, slicing through the quiet. He pressed the frost-coated bottle to Joshua’s stomach, the shock of cold drawing a gasp. The cork popped with a sound like a pistol shot, reverberating off the marble floors. Joshua flinched; Dion’s laugh followed, low and dangerous. Golden liquid cascaded into a crystal flute, bubbles erupting like miniature detonations. “Let’s drown in it,” he purred, tilting the glass until champagne overflowed, rivulets snaking across the counter toward Joshua’s trembling thighs.

Behind him, Clive’s arms encircled his waist—familiar, yet foreign in their desperation. A human straitjacket, anchoring him to the nightmare. Joshua’s mind fractured: part of him wanted to collapse into that embrace, to pretend Clive’s calloused hands could still shield him from the world, as they had when he was seven, bleeding from a scraped knee in their childhood garden. But the other part, raw and screaming, recoiled. Clive didn’t get to play the protector now. Not after everything.

Dion’s lips brushed the shell of Joshua’s ear, his breath hot against the chill-damp skin. “Know what I do with damaged assets?” The words slithered in, venomous. Joshua’s pulse leaped as Dion’s teeth grazed his jugular—a predator’s tease. “I make them priceless.” The threat hung in the air, a guillotine blade.

Outside, the San Francisco Bay glittered, indifferent to the wreckage unfolding in the skyline palace. Joshua’s gaze flicked to their reflection in the windows: Clive’s face, a mosaic of guilt and resolve; Dion’s, all sharp angles and triumph; his own, porcelain-cracked, a Renaissance angel dropped from its pedestal. The dishwasher’s hum synced with his ragged breathing, a mundane counterpoint to the opera of their ruin.

Another gala, another lifetime. The memory surged unbidden: Dion in a Tom Ford tuxedo, champagne froth dotting Joshua’s collarbone as he laughed against his skin. Clive, across the room, turning away as if the sight burned. Joshua had read it as disdain then. Now, he wondered—had it been envy? Fear? Love?

“Lesson one,” Dion murmured, dragging Joshua back to the present. He held up Clive’s hand, freshly bandaged, white gauze stark against olive skin. Clive had wrapped it with soldier’s precision, the same meticulous care he’d once used to tape Joshua’s childhood Lego forts. Dion pressed his mouth to the dressing, eyes locked on Joshua. “Dangerous games require three players.”

Joshua’s laugh shattered the moment, brittle as a smashed flute. “Or a firing squad.” His voice surprised him—steady, venomous. A shard of the person he’d been before the betrayals, the deals, the nights tangled in Egyptian cotton and lies.

Clive’s fingers grazed his temple, tucking a sweat-damp curl behind his ear. The gesture—so achingly tender—clashed with the scene. Joshua remembered those hands guiding his first bike, steadying him during an earthquake, wiping blood from his chin after a schoolyard fistfight. “We’ll do better,” Clive whispered, but the tremor in his touch betrayed him.

“Liar.” The word tasted like ashes. Yet Joshua’s traitorous body leaned into the caress, nausea and need churning in his gut. Dion watched, amber eyes alight with predatory amusement. He knew. They all did. This dance of destruction was their only language now.

Dion’s lips found his pulse again. “Gold is purified by fire,” he murmured. “You’ll thank me.”

“I’ll hate you,” Joshua breathed.

“Hate’s a currency, sweet thing. Spend it well.”

Clive made a sound like a wounded animal. For a heartbeat, Joshua thought he’d break free, and punch the smirk off Dion’s face. But his brother just pressed his forehead to Joshua’s shoulder, a supplicant at an altar.

Somewhere beyond the glass-and-steel fortress, the Golden Gate Bridge vanished into fog.

The housekeeper would find shards of glass and bloodstained gauze later. For now, they orbit each other—supernova and black hole, pulling apart only to collide harder.

（29/03/2025）

Chapter Text

Clive’s loft smelled like gun oil and regret.

He’d sent 23 texts since breakfast:

10:07 AM Clive: We need to talk.

10:39 AM Clive: Please.

11:12 AM Clive: It wasn’t betrayal. I swear.

11:15 AM Clive: Answer me.

11:23 AM Clive: You can hate me. Just don’t—

The last message hung unsent, thumb hovering over “don’t disappear”. Clive deleted it.

The punching bag swung wildly on its chain, each thunderous impact of Clive's gloved fists echoing through the empty gym like mortar fire. Sweat stung his eyes, blurring the cracked mirror before him into a funhouse distortion of muscle and regret. His phone lay face-up on the floor, screen illuminated with the 23rd unanswered text to Joshua—a single sentence that had taken fifteen minutes to type: "Need to talk. Please."

He'd memorized every pixel of their last exchange. The way Joshua's texts had devolved from barbed wit ("Your guilt's showing, big brother") to radio silence. How the blue iMessage bubbles turned to void. Clive's thumb hovered over the call button again, knuckles split from this noon's mirror punch. The same hand that had cradled Joshua's feverish skull at six when he'd spiked 104° from pneumonia. The same fingers that had traced the constellation of Dion's teeth on his brother's throat twelve hours ago.

Clive closed his eyes.

Flashback: 03:17 AM, Dion’s Penthouse

Joshua’s teeth scraped Clive’s collarbone, breath hot and uneven. “Make him stop,” he’d hissed, voice raw from screaming. Dion’s hand tightened in his hair, wrenching his head back. “You asked for this,” Dion growled, thrusting deeper.

Joshua’s sob cracked against the headboard. Clive’s grip on his brother’s hips faltered. “I can’t—”

“You will.” Dion’s command brooked no argument.

Joshua’s eyes found Clive’s—wide, wet, pupils blown with terror. “Don’t let him,” he whispered. Then, softer, a secret between brothers: “Clive.”

Clive’s resolve snapped. He kissed Joshua—hard, desperate—as Dion laughed behind him. “There’s my Marine,” Dion purred. “Take what’s yours.”

"Fuck!" Clive's right hook sent the bag careening. The chain shrieked like a wounded animal.

Memories ambushed him in the rhythm of his footfalls along the Embarcadero—Joshua at sixteen, stealing Clive's dog tags before his third deployment. "So you don't forget who's waiting," he'd said, all bravado and trembling lips. The tags had come back dented from a Baghdad IED, Joshua's fingerprints worn smooth against the metal. Now they hung around his brother's neck like a noose.

Clive's running shoes pounded the fog-damp boardwalk. Third lap. His lungs burned with salt air and recrimination. He'd circled Joshua's SoMa loft twice already, drawn like a moth to the dark windows. The Nest Cam footage from Dion's penthouse played on loop behind his eyelids—Joshua's laugh turning to a whimper, his "D-Dion—!" dissolving into static.

The VA therapist's voice slithered through his tinnitus: "Hypervigilance manifests differently post-discharge, Corporal. You can't protect everyone." Bullshit. He'd protected entire villages from less. But Joshua? Joshua had always been his St. Jude—the patron saint of lost causes, beautiful and bleeding out in Clive's arms.

He dialed Joshua again. The thirty-fifth time that day. Straight to voicemail.

“You’ve reached Joshua Rosfield. If you’re calling about the apocalypse, press 1. For art commissions, press 2. For—”

Clive hung up.

His phone buzzed. A notification—Joshua's Instagram update. The photo showed Joshua at a gallery opening, backlit by neon installations, Dion's hand possessive on his waist. Caption: "Electric Shadows 2.0. Let the moths burn."

Dion took him to that event after the awkward breakfast of the three.

Clive zoomed in. Joshua's smile didn't reach his eyes. There, in the micro-tremor of his lower lip—fear. The same tell he'd had at seven when their father crashed Christmas dinner, at sixteen when his first boyfriend ghosted him, at twenty-three when Clive had pressed him into Dion's silk sheets.

Clive's thumb left a sweat smudge on the screen. He'd mapped every shade of Joshua's courage. The bravado when terrified, the laughter when gutted, the seduction when cornered. Last night's performance had been Oscar-worthy—the arched brows, the venomous quips, the way he'd bitten Clive's shoulder hard enough to scar during the shower. All theater. All lies.

Except when he'd whispered "Please" against Clive's shoulder. That had been real.

Clive's combat boots echoed through the alley, Joshua's studio loft rose before him—a converted warehouse with floor-to-ceiling windows Dion had bought to "nurture his genius." The third night this week Clive had patrolled its perimeter. The Nest Cam's red eye watched from the fire escape. Dion's doing. Always Dion.

He pressed his palm to the cold glass. Joshua's latest painting loomed in the dark—a triptych of shadowy figures devouring a golden-haired youth. Clive didn't need the scrawled "Les Dévorants" plaque to recognize the subjects. The central figure had Clive's scar across his jawline, the left one Dion's razor-sharp cheekbones. The youth's face was pure Joshua—ecstatic and terrified, hands fisted in his own hair as the figures feasted.

"Fuck." Clive's breath fogged the window. He'd stood here after Fallujah too, watching eighteen-year-old Joshua vomit tequila and tears after his first gallery flop. Had broken the lock then, carried him to bed, held him through the shakes. Now the door had a biometric scanner. Dion's name is on the deed. Clive's fingerprints were revoked.

His phone lit up with a 4:04 PM text draft:

Joshua –

It wasn't betrayal. Sylvestre planned to—

Delete. Too clinical.

J—

I can smell your fear through the goddamn screen. Let me—

Delete. Too raw.

Phoenix—

That summer in Nice, when you almost drowned? I lied. I held you too tight on purpose. Wanted an excuse to—

Delete. Nuclear option.

The draft folder was swelled with unsent letters. Clive's thumb hovered over voice memos—three drunken ramblings deleted. Even the whiskey couldn't give him eloquence.

He knew that he needed to talk to Joshua alone as soon as possible. He had to make it clear to his beloved brother that no matter what happened, he would never betray him or abandon him, even if it meant carving his heart out.

However, Joshua didn’t give him that chance. After their tense breakfast, he was whisked away by Dion to some meaningless gallery opening or something. Clive knew exactly what was happening; Joshua was trying to avoid him.

Flashback: 10:22 AM, Dion’s Penthouse

Clive stepped closer. Joshua didn't flinch, but his pulse jumped in his throat. Clive could chart its rhythm blindfolded. "We need to talk. Alone."

Joshua blew smoke in his face. "Funny. Dion said you'd beg."

The floor tilted. Clive gripped the doorframe, his dog tags burning against Joshua’s sternum. "Five minutes."

"Or what?" Joshua's smile glittered like broken chandeliers. "You'll tackle me? Handcuff me to your pickup? Newsflash—your damsel-in-distress routine's getting—"

Clive's control snapped. He yanked Joshua up, ignoring the yelp of pain, and pinned him against the Warhol original. "Listen—"

"Let go!" Joshua thrashed, all knees and teeth and terror. Clive absorbed the blows—the way he'd absorbed mortar fire, the way he'd absorbed hell itself to keep this wildfire alive. Still, he held on.

"Please," Clive rasped against his brother's temple. "Just let me—"

The sudden footsteps froze them both. Dion leaned in the doorway, tailored suit immaculate, eyes colder than the Mariana Trench. "The car is waiting downstairs, we're already late. Or rather, what Shakespeare's play are we performing here?"

Joshua went limp in Clive's arms, laughter fraying into hyperventilation. "He's—he's fucking delusional, Dion. Thinks I need saving from—"

"From the truth," Clive growled. His thumb found Joshua's pulse point—rabbiting, erratic. A silent scream. "Tell him, Dion. Tell him what your father planned."

Dion's smile could've flash-frozen the room. "Ah. The Marine's developed a conscience. How... inconvenient."

Joshua stilled. "What's he talking about?"

"Your brother thinks himself a white knight. Thinks we're the villains in his mangled fairytale." He stroked Joshua's cheek, possessive. "Shall we enlighten him, darling? Or let him keep playing martyr?"

Joshua's gaze locked on Clive's. In that endless blue, Clive saw the truth take root—the dawning horror that their brutal tryst had been a mercy. That worse monster lurked. That love sometimes wore barbed wire.

"Joshua," Clive breathed, blood dripping between them. "I tried—"

Joshua's palm silenced him—not a slap, but a benediction. "You always try." His thumb brushed Clive's split lip, a mirror of their shower scene. "Hero complex's gonna kill you someday."

The floor dissolved. Clive's knees hit the marble.

Dion's laugh slithered through the room. They left.

Clive closed his eyes. The war wasn't over. It had just begun.

What he didn’t know was, that Dion had no idea where Joshua was at the moment.

Rain lashed against the warehouse windows, turning the neon "ELECTRIC SHADOWS 2.0" banner into bleeding watercolor. Joshua huddled beneath his paint-splattered denim jacket, watching raindrops run down his reflection in a shattered gallery plaque. The alley behind Pier 54 smelled of rotting kelp and diesel—a far cry from Dion's bergamot-scented penthouse showers. He'd planned this escape for seventeen minutes and thirty-three seconds, ever since slipping Dion's bodyguards at the Geary Street crosswalk. Planned being generous.

Rain needled the back of Joshua's neck as he hunched behind a dumpster in an alleyway. His fingers trembled against Clive's dog tags—still warm from being ripped off during last night's fight—while his other hand scrolled through Dion's increasingly furious texts.

Dion: 4:24 PM

You forget who owns that pretty neck, Phoenix. Find a wall to paint on. I’ll find you before the paint dries.

Dion: 4:27 PM

AUDIO MSG (12 sec)

Joshua didn’t need to play it. Dion’s breathing alone could map the stages of his rage—that hitch before destruction, the purr before annihilation. Three blocks north, Dion's penthouse loomed—a glass cage with Nest cams in every light fixture. Ten blocks west, Clive’s loft sat dark and guilty. Trapped between Scylla and Charybdis, Joshua wrapped his arms around knees that still smelled of Dion’s Rive Gauche cologne and Clive’s military-grade detergent.

This isn’t running, he told the rat gnawing a wonton wrapper nearby. This is strategic repositioning.

The lie curdled in his throat. Joshua pressed his forehead to damp brick, phantom pains flaring where Dion’s grip had bruised his hips, where Clive’s desperation had clawed his back. Survival required compartmentalization—a skill he’d mastered at Ten.

Joshua snorted, breath fogging the brick. Dion’s voice purred through memory unbidden—“You mistake cages for sanctuaries, little phoenix.” Always dichotomies with them. Clive’s love is like a garrison—safe, stifling, smelling of gun oil and regret. Dion’s like a wildfire—consuming, capricious, leaving ash in its wake. Both burned. Both branded.

But Dion was there, for years he’s the only one to recognize Joshua's true self—isolated and yearning for connection among the crowd.

Rain seeped through his jacket, icy fingers tracing the scar Dion’s signet ring had left below his collarbone. A permanent whisper. His thumb found the raised edge of Clive’s dog tags, the stamped serial numbers he’d memorized like a rosary. A different kind of scripture.

“Fuck,” he hissed, slumping back against the dumpster. The wonton wrapper skittered past his boot, grease stains blooming like Rorschach tests. What do you see, Joshua? Dion would ask during those languid, dangerous mornings tangled in black silk sheets. Ruins, he’d lie. Never home.

But here, knees pulled to his chest in a dimly lighted alley, the truth clawed up his throat like bile. He loved Clive’s stubborn tenderness—how he’d stitch up Joshua’s split knuckles after a midnight brawl, muttering about tactical retreats. Loved Dion’s terrifying brilliance—the way he’d recite Rilke while mapping constellations across Joshua’s ribs with his finger. One anchored him. The other set him ablaze. And Joshua—

“I’m the fucking tightrope,” he whispered.

Memories flickered, relentless. Clive’s hands, calloused and careful, cradling his face after the Santa Fe job had gone wrong. “You don’t have to keep proving you’re unbreakable.” Dion’s laugh, sharp as shattered crystal, when Joshua tried to walk out that first time. “Darling, I invented exits. You’ll take the one I allow.”

His chest ached. Not from the cold.

Joshua pressed the dog tags to his lips, copper and gunpowder flooding his senses. Clive deserved better than stolen nights and half-truths crusting over like old paint. Dion would raze cities to find him, then pretend it was a game. And Joshua—

“I’m the common denominator,” he said to the dripping fire escape. A confession, sodden and ugly. He’d painted Clive as a martyr, Dion a demon. Convenient fictions. The real sin? Wanting them equally. Needing Clive’s “stay” as desperately as Dion’s “kneel.” Survival meant choosing, but his heart—a traitorous, ravenous thing—kept rewriting the script.

Lightning split the sky. For a heartbeat, the alley fluoresced bone-white, his shadow thrown sharply against the wall—a puppet with tangled strings. The banner across the street flapped wildly, ELECTRIC SHADOWS now just ECTRIC HA OS. Appropriate. Half-formed things. Echoes.

He fumbled in his jacket pocket—a crumpled postcard from Clive’s last deployment (Miss your stupid face) and Dion’s platinum cufflink, pried off during some forgotten argument. The two objects burned against his palm, talismans of impossible love.

“Coward,” he spat, but the word lacked venom. Survival had always meant outrunning the parts of himself that ached to be claimed. But here, shivering and raw, Joshua finally let the rot spill free—he loved them beyond reason, beyond safety. Loved Clive’s steady heartbeat against his ear after nightmares. Loved Dion’s smirk when he caught Joshua stealing his shirts. Loved them in ways that didn’t fit neat narratives, that bled outside the lines he’d tried so hard to draw.

His phone glowed faintly in his pocket. Dion would triangulate the last signal soon. Clive was likely already canvassing the Tenderloin, jaw set in that quiet fury that meant hurt. Joshua’s lungs tightened. Running was a language he’d mastered, but fluency left him starving.

He stood, legs trembling. The banner rippled, rain peeling away letters like old skin. Strategic repositioning. A bitter laugh escaped him. There was no strategy for this—only the terrible, glorious risk of standing still.

Joshua stepped into the downpour, dog tags clenched in one hand, cufflink in the other. Let the storm erode him. Let them come.

Some fires, once lit, refused to die.

A limousine purred to a stop outside. Joshua froze, palette knife sliding into his sleeve. Dion's people drove SUVs. This was worse. The license plate read SL-EST-01. Sylvestre Lesage's signature move—vanity plates for his fleet of corporate predators.

"Mr. Rosfield." The voice slithered through the warehouse's rusted vents. "I bring gifts, not handcuffs."

Of course, Sylvestre would have backdoor access. The old viper probably owned the surveillance satellites too.

Sylvestre emerged from the shadows, tailored cashmere coat untouched by rain. His smile mirrored Dion's predatory charm, aged like whiskey in an oak casket. "You look positively feral, child. Has my son been neglecting your grooming?"

"Fuck off." Joshua's voice cracked. He hated how small it sounded. "Tell Dion I'm not coming back."

"Ah, but I'm not Dion's errand boy." Sylvestre produced a monogrammed handkerchief, gesturing at Joshua's bleeding palm. "You've been chewing your cuticles again. Nervous habit, if memory serves."

Joshua stared at the monogram—SDL, embroidered in blood-red thread. The same initials stamped on Dion's riding crop. "What do you want?"

"To admire your handiwork." Sylvestre circled the chandelier. "Delightfully macabre. The San Francisco Chronicle called it 'a damning portrait of pharmaceutical excess.' I call it... insurance."

Ice flooded Joshua's veins. He'd stolen the champagne flutes from Sylvestre's Hamptons estate. Every brushstroke here was a confession. "Blackmail's beneath you."

"Tut. I'm here to offer salvation." Sylvestre's cufflinks glinted—obsidian ravens clutching diamonds. "You've outgrown my son's gilded cage. Let me fund your next exhibition. Tokyo. Shanghai. Anywhere beyond Dion's... enthusiasm."

The warehouse’s single-hanging bulb swung like a pendulum above them, casting jagged shadows across Sylvestre’s razor-sharp cheekbones. Joshua’s back pressed against his half-finished sculpture—a twisted helix of shattered smartphone screens and prescription bottles—as the older man advanced with the predatory grace of a patent lawyer circling a loophole.

“You mistake me for a blunt instrument, Joshua.” Sylvestre’s gloved hand brushed the dust from a workbench strewn with charcoal sketches of Dion—Dion laughing in bedclothes, Dion’s hands around a champagne flute, Dion’s teeth bared in ecstasy. “Barnabas’ methods reek of last-century thinking. Kidnapping? Torture?” He tsked, adjusting his Carrera glasses. “Amateur dramatics. My son’s little performance last night proved that theatrics only breed martyrs… and martyrs make terrible investments.”

Joshua’s fingers twitched toward the X-Acto knife hidden beneath a tarp.

“You’re wondering how I know about the gala.” Sylvestre produced a platinum cigarette case engraved with the Lesage family crest. “Security feeds, credit card logs, your charmingly naive texts to Clive.” He lit a cigarette with a monogrammed lighter, the flame reflecting twin infernos in his lenses. “Dion’s Achilles’ heel has always been his romanticism, trailing broken hearts and bad press. But you…” Smoke curled around Joshua’s throat like a noose. “You are his Helen.”

Joshua’s pulse spiked. “You’re bluffing.”

“Am I? My son’s too busy romanticizing your ‘artistic temperament’ to notice the knife at his ribs. But I’ve always admired your pragmatism. Survival requires teeth, doesn’t it?”

Rain hammered the corrugated roof, syncing with the tinnitus scream in Joshua’s left ear—a souvenir from Dion’s “disciplinary” soundproofed room. He forced his voice steady. “If you’re not here to ship me off to Barnabas’ yacht, what’s the play? A lecture on corporate loyalty?”

Sylvestre’s laugh was a dry thing, all martini olives and boardroom coups. “Loyalty’s a currency for the sentimental. I prefer mutually assured destruction.” He tapped ash onto a sculpture base welded from Dion’s discarded golf clubs. “You want to disappear. I want to excise my son’s… distractions before his CEO vote next month. Our interests align.”

Joshua’s thumbnail dug into his palm, reopening the crescent wounds from last night’s panic attack. He’d mapped escape routes since this morning, but every path led back to Lesage surveillance, to Clive’s desperate voicemails, to Dion’s velvet-gloved threats. “Why help me vanish? You could ruin me with a phone call.”

“Ruin?” Sylvestre arched a brow. “To make my son your prince charming? He's my boy, I know him, and his rebellion.” He gestured to the sculpture’s jagged edges. “This? This isn’t art. It’s a cry for help scrawled in bank statements and Adderall. Let me monetize it properly.”

The words carved deeper than Dion’s riding crop ever had. Joshua’s vision blurred—not from fear, but rage at the truth festering beneath them. Sylvestre knew.

“Ah, there’s the spark.” Sylvestre leaned in, close enough for Joshua to smell his cologne—a $3,000 blend of gunpowder and bergamot. “You’ve spent years letting men mold you into their fantasy. The wounded songbird. The feral muse. Now…” His glove brushed Joshua’s cheek, freezing the tear he hadn’t realized had fallen. “Be the arsonist. Let me provide the matches.”

Rain drummed harder. Joshua's mind split—the artist calculating escape routes, the lover tracing Dion's bite marks beneath his sweater. His fingers found the dog tags under his shirt. Clive's tags. The chain still smelled of gun oil and guilt.

"You think I'm some damsel needing rescue?" Joshua forced a laugh. "Dion's the one who—"

"—Made you beg for punishment? Oh, I've seen the Nest footage." Sylvestre's smile turned clinical. "My son lacks subtlety. Crude methods for crude creatures. But you..." He stroked a canvas smeared with Clive's fingerprints. "You're Rembrandt meets Francis Bacon. Too exquisite for their clumsy hands."

Joshua's palette knife quivered. He imagined slashing that patronizing smirk, watching corporate blue blood ruin thousand-dollar silk. Instead, he painted lies. "I don't need your charity."

"Charity?" Sylvestre laughed, rich and hollow as a cathedral bell. "This is commerce. Your suffering makes magnificent art. Let's monetize it properly." He spread a contract across Joshua's workbench. "Three-year patronage. Private studio. Full creative control. All I ask..." His fountain pen hovered over the dotted line. "...is exclusivity."

The pages swam with legalese and loopholes. Joshua caught phrases like "non-compete clause" and "right of first refusal." His stomach churned. The last contract he'd signed blind-landed him in Dion's bed. "Why now?"

Sylvestre's gaze flicked to the security camera's dead eye. "Let's discuss incentives. Barnabas Tharmr's yacht docks in Monaco next week. He so admires your... versatility."

The name dropped like a guillotine. Barnabas—Dion's "business associate" with wandering hands and a private dungeon. Joshua's knees buckled. He gripped the workbench, Clive's dog tags cutting into his palm. "You wouldn't."

"Not if you're under my protection." Sylvestre's pen tapped the contract. "Sign, and Barnabas gets some pretty new toys. Refuse..." He sighed, adjusting Joshua's crooked collar. "Well. The papers do love a tragic artist story."

Rain bled through the skylight, pooling around Joshua's boots. He studied Sylvestre's reflection in the champagne-flute chandelier—a funhouse distortion of Dion's cheekbones and Clive's storm-blue eyes. The Lesage men shared that predatory stillness, the certainty that everything alive could be bought, broken, or both.

"Here's a counteroffer." Joshua's knife found Sylvestre's tie, slicing through Gucci silk. "Tell Barnabas I'll paint his autopsy. Free of charge."

Sylvestre chuckled, examining his ruined tie. "Defiant to the last. How very Rosfield." He pressed a button on his phone.

A notification buzzed in Joshua’s back pocket—Clive’s 27th text today: Pls let me explain. Meet me at our spot. Our spot. The abandoned observatory where 16-year-old Joshua had smoked his first joint, where 23-year-old Joshua had begged Clive to ruin him. He imagined Clive there now, all tortured honor and hands that ached to fix what they’d shattered.

“Tick-tock, Mr. Rosfield.” Sylvestre checked his Patek Philippe. “Dion’s tracking team is seven minutes out. Shall I have them drag you back to his penthouse? Or will you let me make you… untraceable?”

The wind howled through broken windows, carrying the bay’s metallic stench. Somewhere beyond the storm, Barnabas’ yacht cut through Pacific waves—a floating prison with silk sheets. Somewhere closer, Clive waited with his martyr complex and broken promises. Joshua stared at Sylvestre’s outstretched hand, the family crest glinting like a brand.

Every instinct screamed “trap”. But traps could be repurposed.

Wind howled through the warehouse, scattering sketches of Clive—Clive bleeding out in Fallujah, Clive pinning him against Dion's sheets, Clive's hands shaping apologies against his hips. Joshua's throat tightened. He'd spent months painting their wars, their hunger, their ruinous love. Now the triptych needed an ending.

“What’s the catch?” Joshua asked, fingers hovering above the devil’s bargain.

Sylvestre’s smile revealed teeth filed to perfection. “A trifle. You’ll create one final piece for me—a portrait of Dion’s… vulnerabilities. Consider it an audition.”

“For what?”

“Your new career.” The cigarette tip glowed like a dying star. “All great artists become brands eventually. Let’s see if you’re combustible enough to burn properly.”

"Fine." Joshua scrawled his signature, the letters bleeding like his split lip. "But I want cash. Untraceable."

"Prudent." Sylvestre snapped his fingers. A briefcase materialized—euros, yen, crypto wallets. "Shall we?"

(16/04/2025)

Chapter Text

"Is it working?" A voice murmured.

“Yeah, I think so.”A second voice confirmed.

The sun dipped toward the horizon, painting the endless sea in molten gold as the luxury yacht carved through the waves. In the main salon, where crystal decanters caught the dying light and scattered ruby reflections across mahogany panels, Joshua Rosfield lay sprawled across a leather sofa, his breathing shallow but even.

"Well, I guess our job was half done?" Biast grunted, watching the artist's eyelashes flutter against pale cheeks.

Tiamat leaned down, close enough to count each golden eyelash. "Yeah," he confirmed again, straightening his tailored jacket. "The old man's champagne did its job. Three sips of that spiked Dom Pérignon and our songbird's wings are clipped." His gloved hand hovered near Joshua's pulse point, close enough to feel the warmth of drugged sleep.

With a theatrical flourish, he produced a small glass vial from his breast pocket, shaking it to make the white tablets inside rattle. "All thanks to these babies," he smirked, holding it up to catch the fading light. "One little pill guarantees hours of dreamless sleep - dissolves in any liquid in under two seconds, completely tasteless, works faster than you can say 'goodnight', and best part? Zero side effects. Sylvestre thinks of everything, doesn't he?" His laughter was sharp as broken glass. "Pity our sleeping beauty won't get to thank him personally when he wakes up." He set the vial down on the marble bar with deliberate carelessness, leaving it there like a discarded prop.

Biast circled the chaise like a shark, his polished Oxfords sinking into the Persian rug, his eyes roving over Joshua's unconscious form with a mix of envy and disdain. "Such a waste. Dion's prized possession," he mused, "wrapped up and delivered like a Christmas present for Barnabas Tharmr. But then again, who are we to argue with Sylvestre's plans?" His tongue clicked against perfect teeth. "Pity Sylvestre doesn't believe in return policies."

Tiamat nodded, his grin revealing a row of perfectly straight teeth. "Yeah, and it's not like Dion will ever find out the truth. By the time our sleeping beauty wakes up, he'll be on Barnabas' yacht, far out of Dion’s reach. And Sylvestre? He'll have one less distraction to worry about."

Through the panoramic windows, the first stars began to prick through the twilight. Tiamat checked his watch - a gift from Sylvestre for delicate jobs like this. "Six more hours until the transfer point. Barnabas' men will take him the rest of the way to his new master." He adjusted Joshua's limp wrist so it lay more naturally against the cushions, the very picture of professional care. "Our only job is to deliver the package undamaged."

Joshura's fingers twitched, a last unconscious protest, as the yacht's engines hummed toward destiny.

Fifteen Minutes Earlier

The polished teak decks of the luxury yacht shimmered like liquid gold under the California sunset as it sliced through the Pacific waters.

Inside the main salon, where crystal chandeliers cast kaleidoscopic patterns across rich mahogany walls, Joshua Rosfield sat slumped in a plush armchair, his elegant fingers unconsciously tracing the rim of his now-empty glass. The sedative-laced sparkling water had begun its insidious work, clouding his perception to the point where he failed to notice how Tiamat and Biast-Sylvestre's supposedly professional escorts had transgressed every boundary of decorum they'd so carefully maintained earlier.

"Feeling tired, pretty bird?" Tiamat cooed, his voice dripping with false sympathy as he leaned far too close, invading Joshua's personal space with predatory familiarity.

Gone was the respectful distance they'd maintained during boarding, when they'd addressed him as "Mr. Rosfield" with downcast eyes and gloved hands clasped behind their backs. Now their masks of professionalism had slipped as completely as Joshua's fading consciousness.

Joshua's long lashes fluttered like wounded butterflies as he struggled against the drug's pull. "I don't..." His voice, usually so melodious, came out thick and clumsy. "Why am I so..." The glass slipped from his nerveless fingers, caught at the last moment by Biast with a mocking flourish.

"Long day, hm?" Biast's tone oozed faux concern as he exchanged a knowing smirk with Tiamat. The two men bracketed Joshua like bookends, trapping a fragile volume, their earlier pretense of deference abandoned now that their prey was helpless. "Why don't you rest on the divan?" Biast continued, gesturing to the cream-colored sofa with exaggerated courtesy. "Such fine Moroccan leather - only the best for Mr. Lesage's precious songbird." The pet name rolled off his tongue with obscene familiarity, a far cry from the respectful "sir" they'd used mere hours ago.

As Joshua collapsed onto the silk cushions, his golden hair fanning out like a broken halo, Tiamat let out a low chuckle. "Pity, really." He reached out to brush a stray lock from Joshua's forehead with a touch that lingered too long. "That face could launch a thousand ships. Now it'll just launch Barnabas'... particular appetites." The vulgar implication hung in the air between them, a stark contrast to their earlier carefully neutral expressions.

Biast traced a single finger down Joshua's unconscious cheek with the clinical detachment of a butcher inspecting meat. "Five, six hours of sleep should do it." His voice took on a singsong quality as he addressed the unconscious man. "By then, we'll be transferring you to Barnabas's men near Catalina. Imagine your surprise when you wake up in that gilded cage." The words were spoken with relish, a far cry from the deferential silence they'd maintained during the initial boarding.

As they wandered through the salon, their earlier pretense of professional detachment had completely evaporated. They touched everything with proprietary arrogance - running fingers along the Baccarat crystal, plinking keys on the untouched Steinway, examining the Klimt reproduction with the casual appraisal of new owners.

"Think Sylvestre will miss this toy?" Biast asked as he helped himself to Dion's prized 25-year Macallan, pouring with the ease of someone who no longer feared consequences.

Tiamat snorted, sprawling across a $50,000 sofa with his boots on the upholstery - an unthinkable act mere half an hour before. "The old man would burn ten yachts to keep his son's reputation clean." He raised his stolen drink in a mocking toast. "To Sylvestre's generosity - giving his rival exactly what he deserves."

Their laughter echoed through the salon, loud and crude, a stark contrast to the respectful whispers they'd used when Joshua could still hear them.

The mammoth vessel cutting through the Pacific was no ordinary pleasure craft, but a floating palace stretching over 100 meters from bow to stern. Designed for transoceanic voyages, its navy-blue hull concealed six decks of outrageous luxury capable of sustaining months at sea without resupply. The helipad on the upper deck and the submarine garage below hinted at the owner's need for both grand entrances and discreet exits.

At the yacht's heart rose the two-story main salon, where Joshua now lay unconscious. A cathedral of maritime opulence, the space soared eight meters to a domed skylight of leaded glass that scattered prismatic patterns across the room. Twin curved staircases of Brazilian rosewood connected the levels, their balustrades inlaid with mother-of-pearl compass roses.

It wasn't merely a room; it was a curated environment designed to overwhelm the senses with calculated grandeur. Every surface, texture, and object spoke of near-infinite resources and an obsessive attention to detail, creating a space that felt simultaneously magnificent and intimidatingly perfect.

The lower lounge area featured oversized sofas upholstered in Moroccan calfskin, arranged around a coffee table carved from a single slab of fossilized mammoth tusk.

Twin, sweeping staircases of richly grained, sustainably sourced Brazilian Rosewood formed graceful arcs at either end of the salon, connecting to the mezzanine library.

The balustrades were masterpieces: solid brass rods, hand-polished to a soft, warm gleam, interspersed with panels of inlaid mother-of-pearl forming intricate compass roses and navigational stars against a background of rare, deep-green malachite. The newel posts were capped with solid sterling silver, cast in the shapes of stylized sea dragons – a subtle nod to the vessel's name, perhaps, known only to the inner circle.

Dominating the central space was a few bespoke seating. The primary sofa, upon which Joshua lay insensate, was a monolithic piece upholstered in the finest, undyed white peccary leather from Hermès – chosen not just for its unparalleled softness and durability, but for its utterly flawless, almost luminous surface. Flanking it were two deep armchairs in a complementary, impossibly soft grey cashmere, their forms low-slung and enveloping. Scattered around were several occasional chairs in varying textures: one in a nubby, raw silk the color of storm clouds, another in velvet dyed with crushed lapis lazuli to achieve a depth bordering on black-blue.

The floor was paved with enormous, honed slabs of Pietra di Luserna schist, a grey-blue stone flecked with mica that shimmered like a starry night sky when light struck it. Over this, defining the lounge area, lay an antique Persian carpet of monumental proportions. It wasn't just any carpet; it was a 19th-century vase carpet from Kerman, its swirling floral motifs and deep crimson, indigo, and ivory palette woven with such density it felt like walking on velvet. Its value was incalculable, yet currently serving as padding for Biast's pacing Oxfords.

Scattered throughout were objects d'art that whispered of provenance: a Tang Dynasty ceramic horse on a pedestal of fossilized coral; a blown-glass sculpture resembling a cresting wave by Lino Tagliapietra; a lacquered box inlaid with abalone shell resting on the mammoth tusk table. Fresh, white Phalaenopsis orchids, flown in daily, stood in impossibly thin Baccarat crystal vases, their perfume a faint, clean counterpoint to the leather and wood.

Despite its size, the room was remarkably hushed. The thick carpets, heavy drapes, upholstered surfaces, and specially designed acoustic panels hidden within the wall treatments absorbed sound, creating an eerie, suspended quiet.

Only the distant, reassuring thrum of the engines and the occasional, amplified clink from Biast's glass penetrated the silence.

This salon was a monument to excess, a testament to the power that could command such a space to traverse oceans. Yet now, devoid of its intended audience – the staff expertly banished by Biast and Tiamat's authority – and occupied only by the two enforcers and their unconscious "guest," the very perfection of the room amplified the underlying menace.

The priceless objects felt like silent witnesses, the luxurious textiles like shrouds. The meticulous detail underscored the absolute control Sylvestre's men exerted over this environment and the fate of the young man lying helpless at its center.

Twelve guest suites branched off from the main corridors, each themed after a different Mediterranean port - the Monaco room done in cream and gold leaf, the Santorini suite awash in Aegean blues.

The master stateroom occupied the entire forward section of the owner's deck, featuring his-and-hers marble bathrooms and a private cinema with 360-degree ocean views. Even the crew quarters surpassed most five-star hotels, with memory foam mattresses and individual climate controls.

The galley boasted professional-grade Miele appliances and a walk-in wine cellar stocked with 5,000 bottles, maintained at precisely 13°C. An elevator disguised as an antique armoire connected all decks, its interior lined with quilted Chanel tweed.

The engine room hummed with twin MTU diesels capable of 25 knots, while desalination plants and hydroponic gardens ensured self-sufficiency.

Twenty-three crew members maintained this floating kingdom - an all-star team poached from Four Seasons yachts and private security firms.

The captain, a former naval officer, now monitored systems from the bridge with his handpicked navigation team. Below decks, a Michelin-starred chef prepared canapés that would never be served, while stewards polished already-gleaming silverware in the butler's pantry.

Yet the usual hive of activity had stilled after Biast's discreet orders. "Mr. Rosfield requires absolute privacy for his... artistic process," he'd told the chief steward, flashing Sylvestre's signed authorization.

The staff knew better than to question when the owner's personal enforcers appeared. Now the only sounds were the distant hum of engines and the occasional clink of ice in Biast's stolen Scotch.

In the deserted galley, half-prepared foie gras terrine sat abandoned on marble counters. The spa's heated thalassotherapy pool steamed unattended, its jets still pulsing. Even the security monitors showed only static - Tiamat had rerouted the feeds before doctoring Joshua's drink.

Every crew member found themselves suddenly occupied with invented tasks in far corners of the vessel: reorganizing the linen closets, inventorying life rafts, polishing already spotless tenders.

Only the bridge crew remained at their posts, eyes deliberately averted from the surveillance screens that might show two men hovering over an unconscious guest.

They'd been well compensated to see and hear nothing - another of Sylvestre's standard operating procedures.

The captain focused on weather charts showing clear skies ahead, pretending not to notice when Biast disabled the salon's security cameras with a technician's keycard.

Back in the cavernous main salon, the absence of staff made the space feel even more palatial - and ominous. Without servers to refresh them, the orchids in their Baccarat vases seemed to wilt slightly.

The grand piano's lid gaped open like a hungry mouth. And at the center of it all lay Joshua, his golden hair stark against the white sofa, as out of place as a fallen angel on an altar of greed.

The unconscious form of Joshua Rosfield lay sprawled across the sofa like a discarded marionette, his golden hair fanned against the white leather upholstery that cost more than most people's annual salary.

The rhythmic rise and fall of his chest was the only movement in the otherwise still tableau, his drugged slumber so profound that not even the yacht's gentle rocking could disturb him.

Nearby, Biast and Tiamat lounged against the veined Carrara marble countertop of the wet bar like two panthers resting after a successful hunt, their tailored suits barely concealing the weapons strapped beneath.

They sipped Dion Lesage's prized Macallan from crystal tumblers, the heir's oversight in leaving such treasures unguarded just another symptom of the arrogance that would be his undoing.

Through the salon's open panoramic windows, the Pacific night exhaled its briny breath, carrying whispers of distant waves and unattainable horizons. The salt-tinged air played with the edges of Joshua's shirt collar, a cruel parody of freedom for the captive who couldn't feel its caress.

Somewhere beyond this floating gilded cage, the world continued turning, cargo ships tracing invisible routes, dolphins breaching moonlit swells, islands where one might disappear forever. All possibilities forever beyond Joshua's reach now.

Biast swirled the amber liquid in his glass, watching how the yacht's subtle motion made the whiskey cling to the sides.

"You know," he began, his voice a velvet-wrapped blade, each syllable precisely weighted between amusement and menace, "Joshua Rosfield really is something else." He took a deliberate sip, letting the peaty flavor linger on his tongue before continuing. "To think he actually believed he could negotiate with Sylvestre." A dry chuckle escaped his lips. "The old fox has been playing this game since before either of us was crawling. What did he expect? A handshake and a signed contract?"

Across the counter, Tiamat's answering chuckle was darker, more visceral, the sound of a man who enjoyed the snap of bones as much as the punchline of a joke.

He shook his head, the overhead lights catching the silver streaks at his temples. "Youth and beauty make for dangerous illusions," he mused, running a thumb along his glass's rim. "He's young, naive. A pretty face and a body that could make angels weep, but between those pretty ears?" He tapped his own temple. "Empty space where survival instincts should be. Sylvestre doesn't just want control; he demands absolute dominion. Any variable that won't bend to his will?"

Tiamat made a gun with his fingers, miming a shot at Joshua's unconscious form. "Permanently removed from the equation. Our songbird should have learned that melody by now."

Biast took another measured sip, savoring how the whiskey's smokiness gave way to notes of vanilla and oak, a complexity Joshua would never appreciate now. "He's been coddled too much by Dion," he observed, nodding toward the sleeping figure. "That trust fund prince thought his money could build an impenetrable fortress. Protection from people like us?" He snorted. "Money buys bodyguards, not wisdom. Certainly not the common sense to know when you're out of your depth."

Tiamat's grin revealed slightly crooked canines, the only imperfection in his otherwise polished appearance. "Precisely," he purred, his eyes glinting with the cold amusement of a cat watching a wounded bird struggle. "Dion fancies himself some modern-day Lancelot, swooping in to save Joshua like some knight in shining armor. But Sylvestre?" He leaned forward, the crystal glass catching the light like a prism. "He's playing four-dimensional chess while everyone else struggles with checkers. In his world, pieces aren't moved by something as fickle as love or as fragile as loyalty. Only cold, calculated strategy matters."

"And Joshua," Biast continued, his voice dipping into something almost resembling pity, the way one might mourn a beautiful animal about to be euthanized, "poor, pretty Joshua. He's not even a rook or a knight in this game. Just a sacrificial pawn." He shook his head, marveling at the absurdity. "With youthful delusion. They all think they're special until reality bites. Though in his case... Barnabas does prefer his pets with some fight left in them. Joshua actually thought he could outmaneuver a grandmaster like Sylvestre? It's almost charming in its naivety. Sylvestre has survived coups, betrayals, and an entire board of directors trying to take him down. Joshua's little act of defiance?" Biast flicked a nonexistent speck from his sleeve. "Less than an itch to a man like that."

Tiamat's sudden snort of laughter was sharp as a whip crack. "Besides, did Joshua really think Sylvestre would let him go just because he signed a contract?" He wiped imaginary tears from his eyes. "Contracts can be broken, laws bent. However, the only law Sylvestre truly follows is the law of survival of the fittest. Darwin spelled it out nicely: survival goes to those strong enough to take it. And in that ecosystem..." He gestured to Joshua's prone form. "...our poor little bird is about to go extinct."

With deliberate finality, Biast drained the last of his whiskey, the glass meeting marble with a soft, fateful clink. "The real tragedy," he murmured, studying Joshua's face with something almost like regret, "is the wasted potential. The boy had talent. Could have been great, given time and the right... guidance." He straightened his cuffs with a sharp tug. "But underestimating Sylvestre? That's not a mistake you get to learn from. Joshua's fate was sealed the moment he walked into that warehouse thinking he could bargain with the devil and walk away unscathed."

Tiamat leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. "And don't forget, there's Barnabas to consider. Sylvestre may not care about Joshua's well-being, but he certainly cares about keeping Dion's hands tied. Sending Joshua to Barnabas is the perfect move - it hurts Dion where it hurts the most, without Sylvestre ever having to lift a finger himself."

Biast grinned, a shark's smile in human form. "Barnabas will have a field day, or let’s say, a night, with Joshua. And when Dion finally realizes what's happened, he'll be powerless to stop it. It's a masterstroke, really. Sylvestre playing Dion like a violin, and Joshua's the melody that's about to be played very, very loudly."

Tiamat raised his glass in mock toast. "To Sylvestre, then. The master puppeteer, pulling all the strings. And to Joshua, the beautiful, naive phoenix who thought he could fly too close to the sun."

They both laughed, the sound instantly swallowed by the salon's sound-absorbing surfaces like secrets into a confessional. Only the distant roar of the sea persisted beyond the yacht's insulated walls.

As for Joshua, he lay unconscious, unaware of the cruel game being played out around him, his fate already sealed by the hands of a master manipulator who saw him not as a person, but as just another piece in a much larger, more dangerous game.

The yacht's steward appeared precisely at seven, balancing leather-bound menus against his starched white sleeve. "Pardon the intrusion, sirs," he announced with trained neutrality. "We've reached Mr. Rosfield's scheduled dinner service. Shall I present the menu?" His gaze remained fixed on the middle distance, professionally ignoring the unconscious man on the sofa.

Tiamat snatched the menu with a predator's grin. "Mr. Rosfield is resting before his important meeting tomorrow for a bit longer. Proceed with setting for three - we'll dine first."

As white-gloved staff laid out Baccarat crystal and Christofle silver at the dining table, Tiamat waved them off with a dismissive gesture. "Just wheel the courses to the salon entrance. We'll serve ourselves." The staff bowed out silently.

Only when the last steward's footsteps faded down the teak hallway did Biast’s facade crack. He snatched the Dom Pérignon bottle chilling beside Joshua’s untouched glass. "Well then," he purred, filling two flutes to overflowing, "since Dion's pretty songbird is sleeping through supper..." He raised his glass toward Joshua's motionless form. "...we'll happily sample everything Dion's little pet was meant to enjoy. Pity we can't taste the golden canary himself, but his master's cellar will suffice." Liquid gold trembled in his glass with the yacht's vibration.

Tiamat's fingers tightened around his glass, the crystal creaking under pressure. "No, no," he countered, voice dripping with disdain as he shot Biast a withering glance. "Pretty faces are fleeting. What I want is cold, hard cash—stacked neatly in an offshore account, preferably." His lips curled into a humorless smirk. "Let Barnabas keep his gilded pet. Our payday comes when Sylvestre confirms the handoff—alive and unspoiled." He took a deliberate sip, the champagne's bubbles fizzing like the tension between them. "Unless you'd rather explain to our employer why his merchandise arrived... damaged."

The unspoken threat hung heavier than the yacht's opulent chandeliers. Biast's grin faltered, just for a second, before he raised his glass in mocking surrender. "Ah, Tiamat. Ever the pragmatist." But his eyes flicked to Joshua's still form, calculating, hungry. The game wasn't over yet.

When the first aromas of seared foie gras drifted through the doorway, Tiamat suddenly straightened. "I need to instruct the chef about the truffle reduction," he announced, already moving toward the galley. Biast scrambled after him. "Not without me you don't - that's a Périgord black gold sauce!"

Tiamat spun at the threshold. "You're leaving him alone?" he hissed, jerking his chin toward Joshua.

Biast rolled his eyes. "He's not going anywhere. And since when do Sylvestre's trained seals disobey orders?" The yacht hummed around them, its crew moving with ghostlike discretion. "Relax. Nobody's touched this salon since we commandeered it."

Their footsteps faded down the corridor, leaving Joshua bathed in the salon's golden light - the drug vial glinting on the bar like forbidden candy, his shallow breaths the only movement in the suddenly still air. Somewhere beyond the panoramic windows, the last crimson streaks of sunset dissolved into the hungry sea.

The moment the salon doors clicked shut, Joshua's limp body snapped to life. He rolled upright with catlike grace, stretching his stiffened limbs with a silent grimace. "Gods, playing dead is exhausting," he muttered under his breath, the memory of Sylvestre's oily smile flashing behind his eyelids, that patronizing handshake barely hours ago, the man's voice dripping with false warmth: "Our agreement stands, Mr.Rosfield, you'll be out of their reach before dawn." But he had no time for that at the moment. Every second counted now.

His mind raced back to the champagne flute - how he'd let the liquid brush his lips while tilting the glass just so, the expensive Dom Pérignon cascading silently onto the Persian rug beneath the chaise. Sylvestre's "farewell gift" had reeked of treachery from the start. No one sent their enemy home wrapped in silk and champagne wishes. Not in their world.

A cold smile touched his lips as he spotted the vial glinting on the bar. Tiamat's fatal mistake. The security monitors above the wet bar were dark - they'd disabled surveillance, just as Joshua had gambled they would. Perfect.

In three soundless strides, he reached the abandoned drinks, fingers steady as a surgeon's as he tapped two white tablets into each half-finished glass. The pills dissolved instantly, leaving no trace in the amber liquid. Somewhere beyond the doors, muffled voices argued about tuna preparation.

Joshua was back on the sofa before their footsteps turned toward the salon, his breathing deliberately slowing to match unconscious rhythms. The drug vial now sat precisely where Tiamat had left it.

As the door handle began to turn, Joshua let his eyelids go slack, his last thought a dark promise: You wanted me asleep, gentlemen. Now let's see how you like the dream.

The heavy salon door shut behind Biast and Tiamat, their fading footsteps swallowed by the yacht's ambient hum. Joshua maintained his deadweight slump against the leather sofa, but every nerve ending now thrummed with electric awareness. Through his feigned unconsciousness, he tracked their movements by sound alone—the clink of silverware against Limoges china, the wet pop of a wine cork surrendering, the glutinous splash of soup being ladled. Each noise painted their positions with surgical precision: Tiamat at the table's head (his habitual power play), Biast straddling the chair to Joshua's left (always keeping his prey in sight).

A champagne flute chimed against another. "To absent friends," Biast drawled, the liquid sloshing dangerously close to the rim. Joshua caught the acrid tang of over-oaked chardonnay beneath the champagne's floral notes—they'd switched bottles. Typical. These men couldn't even stay consistent in their poisoning methods.

The meal progressed with grotesque normalcy. Tiamat's steak knife sawed through prime rib, the serrated edge screeching against bone in a way that set Joshua's molars on edge. Biast slurped oysters with performative gusto, each mollusk hitting his tongue with an obscene squelch. Their conversation meandered between vulgar golf anecdotes and inventory lists that sounded suspiciously like black-market arms deals. All while Joshua's muscles burned from maintaining perfect stillness, his right calf threatening to cramp where it pressed against the sofa's cold metal frame.

Then, the first telltale sign.

Biast's fork clattered onto his emptied plate, the sound slightly delayed, as if his fingers had momentarily forgotten their purpose. "Christ, that Bordeaux's stronger than..." His words slurred into nothingness.

Across the table, Tiamat's chair creaked violently as he gripped the table edge. No dramatic pronouncements of drowsiness, no panicked realizations—just the wet thud of a forehead hitting linen as the neurotoxin-laced wine short-circuited their nervous systems.

Joshua counted heartbeats like a prisoner marking days on a cell wall. The grandfather clock's pendulum swung 900 times before he risked opening one eye to slits.

The scene was almost comical: Biast's face planted in a chocolate soufflé, his silk tie slowly absorbing dark sauce like a reverse inkblot test. Tiamat had managed to slide sideways onto the carpet, one arm outstretched toward the emergency call button—a fruitless gesture frozen mid-reach.

Moving with the precision of a bomb technician, Joshua rolled off the sofa and landed in a crouch. The drug vial gleamed on the bar counter where Tiamat had left it. Joshua pocketed it, his fingers brushing against the remaining tablets of Insurance.

He paused to study his captors' slack faces—Biast's usually smirking mouth now hung open, a thread of drool connecting him to the soufflé.

With clinical detachment, Joshua pried their jaws wider and deposited additional pills beneath their tongues. The human body could be frighteningly resilient, especially when trained by years of toxin resistance.

Now came the real test of strength. Tiamat's deadweight measured at least 180 pounds of pure muscle. Joshua hooked his hands under the man's armpits and pulled, his biceps screaming in protest as he dragged the limp form across the polished teak floor. Every inch gained felt like a marathon.

The yacht chose that moment to hit a swell, sending both men lurching toward the panoramic windows. Joshua's shoulder slammed into a mahogany credenza, sending a Ming vase wobbling. He caught it milliseconds before impact, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "Clive," he muttered to the ghost of his relentless trainer, "when I get back, I'm buying you that damned Scotch you're always eyeing."

The starboard storage locker smelled of lemon oil and gunmetal. Joshua dumped Tiamat inside like a sack of grain, taking an extra moment to zip-tie the man's thumbs together behind his back—an old mercenary trick Clive had drilled into him.

As the brass padlocks clicked into place, Joshua allowed himself one steadying breath against the cool metal door. Phase one is complete. Somewhere beneath his feet, the yacht's engines continued their mindless churn, carrying him toward an uncertain rendezvous.

Biast proved trickier; his unconscious body kept folding at odd angles as Joshua maneuvered him into the portside liquor cabinet. The final shove sent several bottles of vintage Armagnac crashing down around the prisoner's legs. Joshua hesitated, then deliberately smashed a 1945 bottle against the doorframe. Let the bastard wake up marinating in his own wasted luxury.

His fingers hovered over Biast's holster, tracing the matte black grip of a compact Glock. The weapon's weight would feel comforting in his palm, its potential undeniable. But Joshua's training had been theoretical—Clive's lessons on firearm safety now just fragmented memories between whiskey-fueled lectures. Better to rely on the element of surprise than risk becoming a danger to himself. The weapons stayed with their unconscious owners, secured in leather sheaths that suddenly seemed wiser than his own impulses.

The second padlock clicked shut with satisfying finality. Joshua wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, the brass key biting into his palm. He approached the ravaged dinner table like a ghost, avoiding the puddle of red wine spreading beneath Biast's overturned glass.

A crusty baguette lay abandoned near Tiamat's place setting. Joshua tore into it with restrained ferocity, the carbohydrates hitting his system like jumper cables.

As he chewed, his free hand hovered over the steak knives—twelve centimeters of polished German steel still glistening with beef fat. He tested the balance between thumb and forefinger before sliding it up his sleeve, the cold metal kissing his wrist pulse point. A shiv with pedigree.

The satellite phone revealed itself in the liquor cabinet's false bottom, nestled alongside a box of Cuban cigars. Joshua's fingers danced across the keypad—no recent outgoing calls, but three encrypted messages from "S-217" that made his jaw tighten. He disabled the GPS transponder with practiced ease before tucking the device behind Volume XII of The Maritime Code in the salon's faux-antique bookcase. The leather-bound tome's gold embossing caught the light: International Waters Jurisdiction. Appropriate.

The knife's weight against his wrist anchored Joshua to the present moment as he hovered near the salon's exit. Every logical calculation screamed that moving now was his only chance—get to the bridge, spin some plausible story about engine trouble or a medical crisis, convince them to drop him at the next coastal speck on the radar before dawn.

Yet his feet refused to obey.

Some primal instinct kept him rooted behind the closed door, his breathing shallow. The captain's loyalty was an unsolved equation.

Would the man nod along to Joshua's demands only to radio Sylvestre the moment his back was turned? The satellite phone's absence might buy him time, but not enough if the entire crew had been prepped to watch for escape attempts.

His fingers twitched toward the concealed blade. Plan B was simple: take control of the bridge at knifepoint if necessary. But nobody needs to get hurt.

The yacht creaked around him, its usual rhythms now laced with threat. That faint vibration in the floorboards—just the engines, or someone approaching? The salt air drifting through the vent carried no answers.

Joshua exhaled through his nose. Every second of hesitation narrowed his options, yet rushing blindly could be equally fatal. The knife's edge bit into the band of his watch as he adjusted his grip. No perfect moves left—only gambles.

Then the distinct cadence of unfamiliar footsteps echoed down the companionway. Too heavy for the stewardess, too confident for the night crew. Joshua's muscles coiled as he melted back into the shadows. The game had just changed.

The salon door swung open with deceptive quietness, revealing a man who wore his rugged charm like a second skin. His short, windswept brunette hair held traces of salt and silver at the temples, framing a face that had seen too many dawns to count. The green of his eyes burned with an almost unnatural intensity—like storm-lit seawater—yet the faint crow's feet at their corners spoke of decades spent squinting into horizons.

A thin cigar dangled from his lips, its wispy smoke curling around sharp cheekbones as he leaned against the doorframe with the casual arrogance of a man who'd never been denied entry anywhere.

"Alors," came the stranger's voice—a whiskey-soaked rasp that seemed to roll across the room like distant thunder. The sound carried the gravel of a thousand smoked cigars and just enough amusement to make Joshua's skin prickle. "This is what old man Lesage wrapped up for Odin's collection?" Every syllable dripped with lazy confidence, as if the very idea of resistance bored him.

Salt-cured leather creaked as he leaned against the doorframe, the glowing tip of his thin cigar painting amber highlights across sharp cheekbones.

Though his hair and tiny lines of his face showed all those tough years, the man moved with the easy grace of someone half his age—a panther in worn boots. The scent of ozone and tobacco preceded him, clinging to his weather-beaten jacket.

He exhaled a smoke ring that curled toward the ceiling, his voice carried the rough melody of someone who'd laughed through too many storms, though his piercing green eyes remained utterly humorless as they locked onto Joshua.

Joshua's spine stiffened. The stranger's posture was all loose-limbed indifference—one boot propped against the doorjamb, fingers idly tapping ash onto the Persian rug—but those emerald eyes never wavered from their target. The scent of salt and gun oil clung to his battered leather jacket, its zipper teeth gleaming like a predator's smile in the low light.

"Wrong room," Joshua lied smoothly, already calculating trajectories to the drugged wine bottle. "The package is—"

A hoarse chuckle cut him off. "Try that again with your pretty eyes, princess," the man murmured around his cigar, the words rough as unvarnished deckwood.

He exhaled slowly, watching the smoke curl toward Joshua like a living thing. "Might almost believe you." His free hand drifted toward his hip, not threatening, his casual grip on a Walther PPK barely visible beneath his leather jacket. The motion made his jacket creak, revealing a glimpse of sun-bleached shirt and old scars beneath.

The intruder's chuckle was a dry thing, like waves receding over pebbles. "Truly, it's a good attempt," he conceded, producing a creased photograph from his breast pocket with a magician's flourish. The image caught the light—a perfect candid of Joshua disembarking at Marseille. "But I don't mistake lambs for lions."

Joshua's fingers tightened around the knife. This man is a professional, but the man was already crossing the threshold with the confidence of someone who owned the very floorboards. The door clicked shut behind him like a vault sealing.

"Now, where have my manners gone?" The stranger made a theatrical show of inspecting the abandoned dinner—the overturned wineglass, the half-eaten steak. His smirk widened as he perched on the table's edge, boots nudging the fine china. "Sleipnir, Sleipnir Harbard, at your service. " He spread his hands in mock surrender. "Barnabas Tharmr's most... persistent employee."

Joshua had never heard that name, nor had he ever seen that face.

The man who called himself Sleipnir took two slow steps into the salon, his worn boots sinking into the plush Persian rug with deliberate irreverence. His emerald eyes flickered across the gilded mirrors and crystal decanters with the amused contempt of a wolf inspecting a pet store.

"Christ," he rasped around his cigar, the smoke curling upward to caress a chandelier dripping with Swarovski crystals. "Lesage really went all out decorating your cage, didn't he?" His calloused fingers trailed along the mahogany bar, pausing to flip open a humidor stocked with Cuban cigars. "Montecristo No.2s," he chuckled, the sound like gravel rolling in whiskey. "How quaint."

He plucked a cut-crystal tumbler from the rack, holding it up to the light where it cast prismatic shadows across his weather-beaten face. "Venini glass," he mused in that smoke-roughened voice, "hand-blown in Murano." With deliberate slowness, he let it slip through his fingers. The shattering echoed like gunfire.

"Perfect." His grin showed white teeth as he stepped over the glittering wreckage. "Only the finest gilded birdcage for Barnabas' new songbird." Those predatory green eyes locked onto Joshua again, drinking in his tension. "Tell me, little phoenix—" he tapped ash onto a $10,000 Aubusson rug "—do they at least let you pick the brand of caviar before they sell you?"

A cold spike of regret pierced Joshua's ribs as Sleipnir advanced. Idiot. He should've swallowed his pride and taken Biast's weapon when he had the chance, which would've been something to brace against this predator's smile. Now he stood defenseless before a man who shattered priceless glass like kindling, his only "weapon" cold in his sleeve.

Joshua fixed his wary gaze on the other person, while Sleipnir remained indifferent to any potential resistance. He decided not to respond, recognizing that the other person's contempt could also represent a faint opportunity hidden within a dim hope.

Outside, the waves slapped against the hull in growing agitation; the night was still young, but in the salon, time seemed to freeze between the cigar's glow and Sleipnir's knowing smile.

The crystal tumbler flashed in Joshua's trembling hand as he poured the amber liquid with forced calm. Every fiber of his being screamed at the impossibility of his situation—how bitterly ironic that his desperate flight from Dion's protection had delivered him straight into the jaws of Barnabas' wolf. The satellite phone gleamed mockingly from its cradle across the room, its signal lights blinking like distant stars.

This so-called Sleipnir watched him with the lazy amusement of a cat observing a mouse's final gambit. The cigar between his teeth burned steadily, its ember reflecting twin hellfires in those unnaturally green eyes.

Joshua's fingers tightened around the hidden steak knife in his sleeve as he stepped forward. The moment the older man's lips parted to refuse—

Motion became violence.

The whiskey arced through the air like liquid fire.

Joshua’s wrist snapped forward – a practiced flick honed by aristocratic fencing lessons. The whiskey erupted from the tumbler in a viscous, honey-colored wave, aimed directly at Sleipnir’s mocking eyes.

Simultaneously, his left hand, hidden in the folds of his silk shirt, became a blur. The stolen steak knife, cold and sharp beneath his sleeve, slashed upwards in a vicious diagonal arc meant for the soft junction between rib cage and abdomen.

Time fractured into crystalline slivers in Joshua's perception. Had this been one of those action films Dion secretly adored, this would be the moment for dramatic slow-motion—the camera lingering cruelly on every micro-expression of dawning horror as his desperate gambit unraveled.

He'd see himself in high-definition clarity: the whiskey arcing through air like liquid amber, his knife hand moving with pathetic sluggishness against Sleipnir's preternatural reflexes.

Most damning of all, he'd witness the exact millisecond when hope died—that infinitesimal pause where his brain registered the knife's trajectory failing, his wrist being captured, his body being effortlessly dismantled. Reality offered no such cinematic mercy. The entire struggle lasted less than three seconds.

And the predator? He didn’t dodge. He absorbed time.

Phase 1: Evasion & Setup: Sleipnir’s head tilted a fraction, impossibly fast, yet looking absurdly leisurely. The whiskey sheet missed his face by millimeters, splattering against the mahogany paneling with a wet smack. His left hand, which had been drifting near his hip, was already moving. Upwards. Palm open.

Phase 2: Interception: Joshua’s knife hand traveled only six inches before Sleipnir’s calloused palm slammed against the back of Joshua’s wrist like a sprung bear trap. The impact was shocking, sending electric agony shooting up Joshua’s arm. His fingers spasmed involuntarily. The knife clattered onto the Aubusson rug, embedding its tip point-first near Sleipnir’s boot.

Phase 3: Domination: The older man didn't stop. He used Joshua’s own momentum. The hand on Joshua's wrist became a vise, rotating inward and down with brutal, mechanical leverage. At the same moment, Sleipnir’s right foot hooked behind Joshua’s ankle – not a kick, but a precise, sweeping pressure. Off-balance and blinded by the pain in his wrist, Joshua had zero resistance.

Phase 4: Termination: Barnabas’s loyal servant powered forward, driving Joshua face-first down onto the chaise longue. His right knee landed with controlled force between Joshua’s shoulder blades, pressing him deep into the velvet. Sleipnir’s left hand, still locked on the captured wrist, wrenched it high up Joshua’s back towards his neck – a brutal hammerlock designed for maximum pain and immobility. Joshua’s free arm was pinned uselessly beneath his own body weight.

Joshua tasted velvet fibers. His vision swam with black spots from the impact and the searing agony in his hyper-extended shoulder joint.

Sleipnir’s weight was immense, focused, and utterly inescapable. The cold leather of his glove pressed into Joshua’s captured wrist. The heat radiating from Sleipnir’s body pressed against his back.

A choked gasp escaped Joshua, less a cry than the sound of air violently forced from his lungs. His struggles were pathetic – tiny shifts that accomplished nothing against the overwhelming pressure and leverage pinning him.

"Ah ah ah," came that graveled purr against his ear, the cigar's heat searing Joshua's cheek as Sleipnir leaned down. The man's knee pressed between his shoulder blades with just enough weight to make breathing a conscious effort. "That's three mistakes now, bird." A gloved finger tapped the base of Joshua's skull where the spinal cord met the skull. "One more..." The unspoken threat hung heavier in the air.

It was useless theater against the ingrained, merciless efficiency of a predator bred in violence. Dion and Clive were miles and miles away, blissfully ignorant. The satellite phone mocked him across acres of priceless, useless carpet. He hadn't just lost; he'd been dismantled in less than two heartbeats. The vast, indifferent sea outside confirmed his crushing isolation. Hope wasn't extinguished; it was vaporized.

The pressure vanished as suddenly as it had come.

Joshua remained frozen, his cheek pressed into the velvet upholstery, every muscle locked in terrified stillness. Sleipnir's cigar smoke curled lazily above him like a mocking specter.

"Tsk tsk tsk." A gloved finger traced the nape of Joshua's neck, making him shudder. "Such a fighting spirit. Bad news, little songbird, Odin enjoys that." The man's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, warm breath ghosting over Joshua's ear: "He likes his toys to struggle. The more they fight, the longer he plays." A pause. The cigar's ember flared as Sleipnir took a drag. "And you? You're exactly his type."

Joshua didn't move.

Couldn't.

His breath came in shallow, silent hitches—the only rebellion left to him. The satellite phone's blinking lights across the room might as well have been stars in another galaxy. Dion's name burned in his throat, unvoiced.

Sleipnir straightened with a creak of leather.

Joshua remained motionless, his face still pressed into the crushed velvet, his body coiled tight with defeat. He wouldn’t give this man the satisfaction of seeing him react—not again.

"Already heard the bad news," the voice above him mused, cigar smoke curling lazily between words. "Want the good one?"

No. Joshua clenched his jaw. He was done playing this rigged game.

Silence stretched.

Then—laughter. Rough, amused. "Stubborn, are we?" A gloved hand gripped his shoulder, rolling him onto his back with unsettling ease. Joshua refused to meet his eyes, staring instead at the ceiling’s ornate molding. "Definitely your brother’s sibling."

Wait.

What?

Clive?

The name jolted through him like a spark. His pulse stuttered—hope, fear, confusion tangling in his chest.

Had Clive sent this man? Or was this another trap?

"You really haven’t met Barnabas or his hounds, have you?" The man crouched beside him, blocking the chandelier’s light. Shadows deepened the lines on his face. "Means you don’t know the real Sleipnir."

Joshua’s breath hitched. Sleipnir. The name meant nothing—just another ghost in this nightmare.

"Lucky for you," the man continued, flicking ash onto the carpet, "you didn’t." A pause. A smirk. "You got—"

"Cid." Joshua bolted upright, wincing as strained muscles protested. "You’re Cid!"

The man—Cid—threw his head back and laughed. "Ha! Still got a reputation, then." He leaned in, eyes glinting. "Tell me, kid. What’d Clive say about me?"

Joshua exhaled through his nose. "...Said you were annoying."

Cid’s grin widened. "Yeah," he sighed, standing and offering a hand. "Figured as much."

Joshua ignored the gesture, pushing himself up. His mind raced—Clive trusted him. But why is he here?—even as his body ached with the aftermath of their fight. The game had changed. But the rules? Those were still unclear.

（07/07/2025）