Undeserved Tears.

Thorne, 29

“She’s ready for you, sir,” Sarah said behind me, her head bowed low.

I didn’t turn immediately. The cigarette hung from my lips as I stared at the photo clutched in my hand, Luna, radiant and glowing, her belly round with life.

Every wall of this room bore her image. I needed to see her. Every. Damn. Day. Needed the constant reminder of the promise I made over her grave.

I swore I wouldn’t just kill the one who took her from me, I’d wipe out everyone they’d ever loved.

Lineage, legacy, all of it, erased.

I was supposed to feel peace by now. Vindication. Instead, there was only silence. That gnawing emptiness that refused to leave.

“You made her ate?” I asked, eyes still fixed on the photo.

Luna had left Brazil for Spain, thinking distance would keep her safe.

That last picture, her hand on her stomach, smiling, was the final thing she ever sent me.

She never got to hold our child. She never heard our baby's cry.

I placed the photo back on the desk and took a long sip from my bourbon. The television droned in the background.

Normally, I hated the news, but for the past five days, it had been saturated with one headline: Elena Robert's wedding massacre.

Every time they said her name, a twisted satisfaction curled through me. I liked to think Luna was listening too.

Elena had lost everything. Just like I did.

“No… not yet, sir,” Sarah answered, her voice quivering.

“Not yet,” I repeated, slowly. My fingers tightened around the glass until it cracked, then shattered completely.

Bourbon spilled over my hand and pooled across the floor.

Sarah flinched. Good. After two years under my roof, she still trembled every time I entered a room. Pathetic. But at least fear meant obedience.

“Shall I tend to your wound, sir?” she whispered.

I ignored her. “Go. I want to watch her eat, even if it means holding her throat and passing the food down with force.”

Sarah scurried out, and I followed, not bothering to clean the blood dripping from my hand.

We walked the long corridor toward the far wing of the estate. Sarah opened the last door and stepped inside, holding it open for me.

Elena was screaming at one of the maids, her voice raw with fury. The girl was begging her to eat, clearly terrified of what would happen if she failed.

The moment they noticed me, silence fell like a guillotine. Everyone bowed.

She was out of the wedding dress now, skin scrubbed clean, but nothing could wash away the grief in her eyes. To an outsider, she looked untouched.

But I knew better.

I stepped forward, lips curling into a smirk. “You're all dismissed,” I ordered. The staff obeyed without hesitation, leaving only Sarah behind.

“Place the food before her,” I said.

Sarah moved to do so, but Elena k's voice cut through the air like a blade.

“I won’t touch a single thing made by your filthy servants,” she hissed, her glare scorching.

I turned toward her. She knelt on the bed, eyes locked on mine with unflinching hatred.

I liked that.

“I told you I’d give you a chance at revenge,” I said softly, almost kindly. “Can you do that without food?”

“I don't want anything to—”

Crack. I was done smiling.

My hand landed across her face before the sentence could finish. The sound echoed off the stone walls. Sarah flinched and turned her face away.

I rarely laid a hand on anyone. But she wasn’t just anyone, was she?

Elena stared at me, lips parted in stunned silence. Then rage returned, bright and burning.

Perfect.

“Eat,” I commanded, my tone clipped and dangerous.

“You hit me?” she whispered, voice trembling. Her eyes glistened, though she fought the tears with every breath. “You hit me?”

I laughed, a cold, humorless sound. “Don’t be naïve, Agent. I don’t care who you are.”

I stepped closer. She instinctively recoiled.

“Now eat.”

To my surprise, she did.

The same woman who’d fired the bullet that killed Luna two years ago to the day, lifted the spoon with a trembling hand and took a bite.

Then another. Then another.

Why wasn’t she fighting back?

I watched her closely. Her shoulders hunched inward, her breath uneven, her eyes hollow. The cracks were showing already.

“Enough,” I said. “Take it away.”

Sarah obeyed, gathering the untouched plate and fleeing the room.

Now it was just us.

Time to begin.

Not just punishment. Destruction.

I would break her, shatter her, and rebuild her into something entirely mine. She would resist. They always did. But eventually, they all crumbled.

I would be her tormentor. Her god. Her salvation.

Two broken things don’t become whole. They become one weapon, forged from pain and fury. She’d belong to me. Nothing more than a possession.

“What now?” she spat, but I heard the fear under the steel.

I stepped forward slowly, deliberately.

“Strip.”

Her head snapped toward me, eyes wide. “What?”

I said nothing, just stared.

She didn’t move.

Crack.

My hand struck her again, harder this time.

She yelped, hand flying to her cheek.

“I will break every bone in your body if I have to,” I snarled. “Now strip.”