The sun was long gone. A single lamp cut a warm circle in the dark living room, leaving the corners to the shadows.

Chloe stood before the bathroom mirror. The black dress was on. It felt less like clothing and more like a second skin, its cool fabric a constant touch against her body.

Her hands were steady as she uncapped the eyeliner. She drew a severe black line along her upper lid, her expression focused. Not to look pretty. To look sharp. To look like a woman who knew what she was doing, even if she was hollow with fear.

She picked up the lipstick. A deep, blood red. She painted her mouth with a slow, deliberate stroke. The color was a wound. A warning.

The girl from this morning, the one in the faded sweater who cried on the couch, was gone. Chloe had buried her. In her place was this stranger with hard eyes and a red mouth, a woman who had tasted power and found it was worth the price. The fear was still there, a cold knot in her stomach. But the fire of what she’d gained today, the chance at a life she actually wanted, burned hotter.

Her phone screen lit up the counter. 9:59 p.m.

Her heart was a heavy, slow drum. Not of fear. Of anticipation.

She walked out of the bathroom, her bare feet silent on the floorboards. She crossed the living room and stopped in the very center, on the spot where the salt circle used to be. She didn’t hide. She didn’t cower.

She waited.

The clock on her phone turned to 10:00.


There was no knock.

Just a quiet, metallic click. The sound of the deadbolt on her front door sliding open on its own. The sound was small violation.

Before she saw him, she felt it. The air in the room changed, pressing in on her. A scent filled the space. Burnt sugar. Old leather. The cold charge of a coming storm.

He stepped through the open doorway. A tall silhouette against the hall light. He was just a man in a dark, perfectly tailored suit, but his stillness was more threatening than any weapon.

He closed the door behind him. The soft click of the latch was a final sound.

His eyes found hers in the gloom and held them. He didn’t look at the dress, he looked at her. It was a gaze that stripped away the makeup, the fabric, everything. It saw the desperate girl on the floor that morning. It saw the ambitious woman who had put on the dress.

The silence stretched, a pressure against her skin. She knew it was a test.

She held his gaze. She did not look away.

He moved without a sound.

His grace was liquid, a predator’s economy of motion that brought him to her coffee table. He placed a single, rolled sheet of parchment on it. The paper made a whispering sound on the wood.

“The fine print,” he said. His voice was the same low vibration from the phone, a sound she felt in her bones.

He didn’t point to the paper. His gaze never left hers as he closed the final distance between them. “You think this was about money,” he said, his voice a low murmur that filled the charged space. He stopped just in front of her, so close she could feel a strange heat radiating from his body. “You performed a ritual of desperation. You asked for a savior.”

He lifted a hand. His knuckles grazed her jaw.

His touch was a shock, a cold fire against her skin that made her gasp. His eyes were dark, holding an ancient, possessive hunger.

“The contract isn’t the paper, Chloe,” he murmured, his thumb tracing the line of her lips. “The contract is you.”

He leaned in, his mouth brushing against her ear. His breath was a warm promise on her skin.

“And the signature,” he whispered, “is your surrender.”

He lowered his head, and his mouth covered hers. It wasn’t a gentle kiss but rather a claim. A brand. His hand slid from her jaw to the back of her neck, fingers tangling in her hair, pulling her impossibly closer. And against the punishing force of his lips, she didn’t just surrender. She answered, opening to him with a desperate, self-destructive hunger of her own.