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“Getting caught.” That gets a twitch at the corner of his mouth.

“Your criminal history is extensive, but unremarkable. Low-level violence, mostly self-preservation. No premeditated kills.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You expected a serial killer?”

“No. But I need to know you’ll do what needs to be done.”

I hold his gaze. “So test me.”

He smiles, sharp and quick. “I just did.”

We go like this for an hour. Every question is more invasive than the last, but I step in with both feet, then wriggle free. I tell him about the group home, the fighting, the early days running street cons. I tell him about the prison stint, how I came out harder and meaner, but also smart enough to avoid being chewed up again. He listens to every word, every micro-expression, and I can almost feel him mapping my brain in real time.

The tension never drops. If anything, it doubles. I start to notice how his eyes track me, how his pulse at the throat jumps when I say something he didn’t expect, how he drums his fingers in patterns that don’t quite match the rhythm of the conversation.

At the forty-five-minute mark, I push. “You ever do your own time, Brooks? Or did you go straight from birth into luxury, bottle fed with a golden nipple?”

He smirks. “That’s not relevant.”

“It is to me,” I say. “How do I know you understand me if you won’t be honest?”

He leans forward, elbows to table. “Do you want to see my scars, Richards? Would that make you feel better?”

I look at his hands, the knuckles neat, the skin at the wrist unbroken except for the faint white lines that could be anything or nothing. “No,” I say. “I’d rather give you new ones.”

He exhales, not a laugh but a soft release. “You’re very good at this,” he says.

“I learned from the best,” I say, and this time it’s not a joke.

He stands, walks around the table, and for a second I think he’s going to hit me. He stops behind my chair, both hands gripping the top rail, and I feel the heat of his body at my neck.

“You know why I picked you? Not just for the Crown, but why you’ve become my fixation?” he asks, voice low and quiet, right at the shell of my ear.

“Because I’m a challenge,” I say. “You like breaking things that aren’t supposed to break.”

He lets his hands drop to my shoulders, fingers kneading just above the bruises he left last night. He squeezes, and the ache sharpens.

“You want to hit me?” he says, almost a dare.

“Not yet,” I say, and he makes a pleased sound.

He shifts, one hand threading into my hair, tugging my head back. My throat stretches as he yanks harder. I bare my teeth at him in the reflection of the window.

“You know what the real test is?” he says. “It’s not what you’ll endure. It’s what you’ll do to someone weaker, if I tell you to.”

“You want me to prove it?”

He laughs, low and dangerous. “No. I want you to remember it.”

He doesn’t let go. He drags my chair back from the table, tips it so I’m forced to brace against the arms or risk falling. My knees splay, and the pressure at my scalp is just this side of pain. He moves around to face me, one hand never leaving my hair.

There’s a bulge at his crotch, hard and obvious, and I stare at it, unblinking.

He unzips, frees his cock, and it’s as hard as I imagined. Thicker than mine, the head flushed almost purple, a droplet of precum already beading at the tip.

He runs his thumb over my lower lip, smearing it with spit, and says, “Open.”

I do. Not because I’m broken, but because I want to taste the power in his blood.