If Love Had Teeth
Summary : Dex only ever had the best intentions with you. What happens when he appeals to your darker nature?
Pairing : DDBA! Benjamin Poindexter x stripper! reader (she/her)
Warnings/tags : stalking, trauma bond, obsessive attachment, codependency, Dex's first lap dance!!! morally grey characters, violence, mention of alcohol, Dex kills a couple of people here too, blackmail, nudity, sex, Dex helps you kill someone who assaults you, mentions of sexual assault and cheating by other characters. Set between ddba s1 and 2 (let me know if I missed anything!)
Word Count : 13.7k whoops.
Requested by : anon
Notes : please send me more morally gray! Reader ideas for Dex. (repost because I still wasn't showing up in the tags) Enjoy!
Many men have fallen in love with strippers. It was a tale as old as time.
You were often the object of that desire.
You had experienced it with smeared lipstick and in the sticky corners of VIP rooms where men thought privacy meant invisibility. You had experienced that ownership, entitlement, whatever they chose to call it when they stopped paying and started believing they were owed something more than you ever offered.
To you, they were not lovers. Not even customers, really.
They were leverage.
You hunted men who had something to lose.
Not the lonely ones, or the broke ones. Not the ones who came in with empty pockets and honest eyes. Those were harmless. You adored them, actually. You loved giving those ones a private lap dance for half your usual rate. Most of them just wanted human connection, and you were lacking those these days so… they helped.
But no. Instead, you went for the ones who carried entire worlds in their suit pockets. You went for men who signed paychecks that moved lives around like chess pieces. Men with wives who wore diamonds bought with lies. Men who spoke about integrity in boardrooms and forgot it in private booths.
Powerful men. Rich men. Married men.
Especially married men.
Because nothing made a man more generous than fear of their wives finding out.
Their first mistake was that they always talked too much.
They thought you were simple. They thought you were just another pretty girl who didn’t understand contracts, NDAs, offshore accounts, or the architecture of reputation. They underestimated how often you’d heard the word “confidential” used as a joke before someone tried to touch you like it didn’t apply.
So they spoke freely of their business deals and insider information while you feigned your empathy for their oh-so-difficult lives. They’d start thinking you actually cared. Then they’d start pouring their heart out, telling you names of people they shouldn’t have named. They started confessing things they did when they thought no one important was watching.
And you listened. You always smiled, tilting your head like you were flattered to be trusted. Like you were weak enough to be safe.
Then you collected.
You’d snap a photo at the right angle. You’d send yourself a message thread left open on a borrowed phone. You’d record audio with a wire you planted in the private room.
Blackmail wasn’t messy when done properly. It was arithmetic.
You never asked for much at first. Money, of course. You’d bat your pretty eyelashes and say that you’d keep your sweet mouth shut and continue being their favourite dance for some funds. You’d request small transfers that looked like indulgence, not extortion. Then favors. Then access. Information that opened doors you were never meant to walk through.
When you got enough information, you’d move on to bigger accounts. Ask for open credit cards to shop, to help some of the other girls pay off hospital bills of loved ones and student loans. Once, you even convinced an older gentleman to get an apartment in the city under your name. How else could you possibly afford to live mortgage-free in a midtown Manhattan apartment with rooftop access?
And when they got greedy, when they started thinking money could buy you, when they thought they could touch you without consequence, you’d stopped being negotiable.
That’s when the wives learned the truth.
You’d send a carefully curated message. A screenshot of a text their husband sent, inquiring how much it would be to purchase your stage-worn lingerie. A recording of a call you had with their husbands saying things like “I can get you a villa in Italy, sweetheart. Is that when you’ll finally let me fuck you?”
You didn’t enjoy the panic that followed, but you respected its efficiency.
Men told you many things because they saw you as disposable. They often forgot that being underestimated was its own kind of power.
By the time they realized you were using it, it was already too late.
—
The first time you saw him, it was a Monday.
It was always slow for business on weekdays. A few regulars were scattered around, a couple of half-drunk businessmen pretending they weren’t checking their phones every five seconds, and the girls rotating lazily through their sets.
You didn’t need to be there.
You’d had a good run lately, very good. You managed to hustle six figures from a man who was desperately trying to cover up the fact that he was going for women two years younger than his daughter. You could’ve taken the night off, and slept in your new silk sheets, ordered something expensive, ignored the world.
But you were bored. So you came to work.
Now here you were, getting on stage for your set.
You climbed the pole like muscle memory, body moving in fluid motions, the kind that made men think they were witnessing intimacy when really it was just a repetition.
You didn’t bother scanning the room at the start, but halfway through a turn, when you dipped low and let your hair brush the stage, your eyes lifted and caught on him.
A man with a scar on his cheek, bathed the same blue lights as you, sitting by the bar. He was watching you, but not like the others. He had no self-absorbed smirk on his face, no lazy entitlement in his eyes. He didn’t have that arrogant hunger that made your skin itch. What he had for you was pure laser focus.
Pretty, you thought immediately.
He was your type. Clean-cut but not soft, hypervigilant posture, so probably ex-military. He was athletic and had a defined jawline, a determined look on his face. His hazel eyes didn’t even wander when another girl crossed his line of sight.
And he looked… out of place.
Like someone who had taken a wrong turn and ended up here by accident. Except, he wasn’t leaving.
You finished your set to polite applause and a few thrown bills you didn’t bother collecting right away.
Your attention stayed on him.
He hadn’t moved, hadn’t reached for a drink. He hadn’t even blinked much, from what you could tell.
Yeah. Definitely weird.
—
You slipped into a robe backstage, tying it loosely around your waist. One of the girls said something to you, and you laughed, but your mind was already elsewhere.
It was on the man at the bar.
You didn’t chase men. They came to you. But curiosity was its own kind of itch, and you had never been good at ignoring those.
So you opened the stage access door and found him.
It was quiet enough that no one cared that you slid onto the stool beside him. The bartender gave you a knowing glance and went back to polishing glasses.
He didn’t turn immediately when you sat down, but you could tell that his awareness was shifting.
“First time?” you asked lightly, resting your elbow on the counter, chin in your hand. Your voice was playful. It was the same voice you used on every man who thought he might be special.
He turned a little. “Is it that obvious?” he asked. His tone was controlled.
You smiled sweetly, but it wasn’t saccharine. “You’re not drinking. You’re not staring at everyone else like you’ve never seen a naked woman before. And you haven’t tried to touch anyone.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t think I was supposed to.”
That made you laugh. “Congratulations,” you said. “You’re already better than half the men in here.”
His expression didn’t change much, but his eyes darted pleasantly, like he was cataloguing the sound of your laugh.
“You were watching me,” you added, tilting your head.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
“Why?” you asked.
You expected him to say something rehearsed. A compliment, maybe line.
Instead, he said, “You are the only thing that made sense.”
Your smile faltered, only for a second. That wasn’t a normal answer.
“You don’t seem like you belong here,” you said, steering to a safer topic but still trying to coax his motives out of him.
“I don’t,” he agreed.
“So why come?”
His eyes flicked over your face, like he was memorizing it. “I wanted to see you.”
You were good with faces, especially the ones worth remembering. But you didn’t remember him.
“Have we met?” you asked.
He nodded hesitantly.
You narrowed your eyes slightly, studying him again, more carefully this time. “Where?”
“The cafe down the street,” he said. “You go there in the mornings.”
Ah. That did narrow it down.
You had your places, and the cafe down the street, a modern coffee house called Third Space, did make a mean Americano.
And yet… you had nothing. No memory of him standing in line, no passing glance, no familiar face.
So it was either he was lying, or you had missed something.
“I think I’d remember you,” you said, a hint of amusement threading through your voice. “Trust me.”
He tilted his head curiously.
“You’re my type,” you explained, suddenly sheepish. You rarely tell potential clients that, and even then, it was never the truth. Well, until now.
It was flirting. A hook, lightly cast. Most men would’ve lit up, leaned in, gotten bold with it.
He just… smiled shyly, almost uncertain, like he didn’t quite know what to do with the information, but liked it anyway.
“Maybe you just weren’t looking at me,” he said.
“Hm,” you hummed, unconvinced, but not dismissing the possibility entirely. “You’ve got a name?” you asked after a second.
“Dex,” he said.
“Dex,” you repeated. “You gonna buy me a drink, or are you just going to sit there and stare all night?”
He nodded, almost shy all of a sudden. You watched him signal the bartender, watched the way he moved, the way his attention kept slipping back to you like everything else in the room was just background noise.
—
You didn’t leave. That was the first sign something was off, because you always left after ten minutes.
You always knew exactly when a conversation had run its course, when a man had given you everything he was going to give, when it was time to smile sweetly and slip away before anything real could take root. But tonight, you stayed on that barstool beside him like you had nowhere better to be, like the hum of the music and the dim lights and him were enough to hold your attention. That alone should have told you this wasn’t going to go the way things usually did.
“You’re thinking too hard,” you said, watching the way his fingers curled around his glass, like even something as simple as drinking had rules he needed to follow.
“I’m not,” he replied, but there was a hesitation before it, just long enough for you to smile simply because you caught it.
“You are,” you insisted, leaning in, close enough that he had to notice, close enough that most men would’ve taken it as an invitation. He didn’t. “It’s… kind of cute.”
His eyes flicked to yours, like he didn’t know what to do with that. “Cute isn’t usually what people call me.”
“Do I look like most people?” you shot back easily, letting your knee brush his, pretending it was accidental. You watched the way he froze for a second, not pulling away, not leaning in either.
Fuck, you liked him. You realized it in real time, and it felt inconvenient and unfamiliar.
You didn’t usually do this, you didn’t sit and talk just to talk, didn’t linger unless there was something to gain. Yet, here you were, not even wondering what you could take from him.
“So what do you do, Dex?” you asked, tilting your head, letting your robe slip just slightly off your shoulder. He noticed, but his eyes snapped back up like he was forcing them to.
“I work,” he said, and you laughed all the same.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
“Mm, mysterious,” you teased. “Or boring. Haven’t decided yet.”
He glanced at you again, and there was uncertainty, maybe, or disbelief. He still hadn’t figured out why you were sitting here. “You could be making money right now,” he said, almost like he was hyperaware for it.
“I could,” you agreed lightly. “But I don’t need to.”
That surprised him. You could tell by the way his brows pulled together, just slightly. “How much is ‘don’t need to’?”
You shrugged, taking a sip of your whiskey. “Enough.”
And that was all he was getting.
You were good at what you did. You didn’t waste time. Except, apparently, tonight. Except, apparently, on him.
“You know what’s funny?” You chuckled. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
His hazel eyes settled on you again, and still refused to say a word.
“Hm,” you hummed, then tilted your head, a smirk tugging at your lips. “What, are you some kind of gun for hire?”
You meant it half as a joke, but the way he went still told you that you’d probably struck a nerve.
Oh. Your smile widened just a fraction.
“I didn’t say that,” he replied carefully.
“You didn’t say no either,” you countered, leaning in just enough to make it feel like a secret between the two of you.
He looked down. “Would it matter?”
You held his gaze for a second, actually considering it. Usually, it would, usually men like that came with complications you didn’t feel like dealing with, but you weren’t looking at him like a problem to solve, were you?
“No,” you said dismissively. “Not really.”
And you meant that, too.
“I don’t know why you’re still talking to me,” he said as if his mouth didn’t have a filter to bypass his brain, like it didn’t fit into whatever understanding he had of how places like this worked.
You raised a brow. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No.” He said, a little too quickly.
“Then relax.” You smiled, pleased in a way you didn’t bother hiding. Slowly, you placed your hand over his arm, meant as a comfort, not a flirt.
That shut him up.
The second drink came easier, the space between you shrinking without either of you acknowledging it. Your body inched toward his, your voice smaller, more intimate, less like a performance the longer it went on, the more certain you became that this— that he— wasn’t someone you wanted to exploit.
You could have. There was always something to take if you looked hard enough. But you didn’t want to look. If anything, he felt like a self-indulgence, an unnecessary risk that was entirely yours to enjoy for no reason other than you wanted to.
So you didn’t think about it too hard when you set your glass down and reached for his wrist, already sliding off the stool as you tugged him with you. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” he asked, his brain trying to keep up with his feet.
“Private booth, and don’t worry about it. This one’s on the house.”
He looked like he hadn’t quite wrapped it around his head but didn’t want to fight it, like none of this made sense to him. He let you lead him like he trusted you already, like he didn’t need to understand it to accept it.
You tugged him again, gentler now, coaxing instead of pulling.
His breath startled again, that small, involuntary reaction you were starting to recognize, starting to like a little too much.
—
The private room was quieter than the rest of the club, the bass reduced to a distant thrum that felt more like a heartbeat than music.
Dex stopped just inside the doorway.
You noticed that immediately.
Most men walked in like they owned the place, like this was the part they’d been waiting for all night. He looked like he’d stepped into an alien planet.
You turned, still holding his wrist, and gave a small, amused smile. “You okay?”
“Yes,” he said quickly. “I think so.”
You let go of his wrist and gestured toward the seat. “Sit.”
He did, immediately, like he’d been given an order he didn’t question, perching on the edge rather than leaning back, like he didn’t know what to do with his body in a place like this.
You took your time.
That was part of it, always. The anticipation, the control of pace. You stepped closer slowly, letting your fingers drift to the edge of your robe, then paused, glancing at him through your lashes.
“Hey,” you said, just wanting to make sure. “You good with me actually… you know.” You gave a teasing tilt of your head. “Stripping?”
He blinked. “…uh,” he managed, clearly caught off guard by the question itself. “Yes?”
You smiled, a little wider this time. The uncertainty was almost endearing. “Yeah?”
“Yes,” he repeated, firmer now, even if his ears had gone just slightly red.
“Okay.” You nodded once, then added, “Just so you know, no touching unless I say so. Club rules.”
“I—” he started, then stopped himself, teeth clenching slightly. “Okay.”
He didn’t know where to look at first, which was ridiculous, because he had spent nights watching you from across the room without blinking, memorizing the way you moved, the way you smiled, the way you existed in a space like you owned it. But this… this was different. This was proximity. You were within reach.
Slowly, you let the robe slip from your shoulders inch by inch, and tonight it felt… different. Less like you were putting on a show, more like you were letting him see something he hadn’t earned and you weren’t trying to sell.
You let the silk robe slide from your shoulders, slower this time, not dropping it right away. You let it drag against your skin, down your arms.
When it finally slipped free, you just let it fall. Your attention still locked on him, and on the way he was looking at you.
You stepped between his knees, close enough that he had to tilt his head up slightly just to keep your face in view, your hand coming to rest lightly against his shoulder.
“You’re doing good,” you sounded like a tease, though you meant it as a compliment.
He let out a strained sound that might’ve been a breath or might’ve been your name.
Oh. He liked that.
“You’re…” he started, then stopped.
You tilted your head slightly, still moving, still close enough that your breath mingled with his. “What?”
His eyes met yours again, darker now, wilderness flickering beneath all that control. “You’re… a lot.”
You can’t help but giggle at that. “Good or bad?”
“Good,” he said, like it wasn’t even a question.
You let the rest of the lingerie strip away piece by piece, like you knew exactly what it was doing to him, like you were aware of the way heartbeat had started to hammer, the way his hands pressed harder into his thighs just to keep from moving, from doing something wrong, from giving in to every intrusive thought and fucking it up.
“You can look,” you murmured.
He almost laughed at that.
“I am,” he said, because there was no point pretending otherwise.
You stepped closer again. Close enough that he could feel your warmth before you even touched him, close enough that his body reacted instinctively, tension pulling tighter, his breath stumbling for a second before he forced it back under control.
You slid your knee onto the seat beside his leg, then the other, straddling his lap without touching fully at first, giving him a second to adjust.
When you let your body settle on him, your hands slid over his shoulders, down his chest, like you were the one in control of how fast this went, how far it went, and he let you, he needed you to, because he wasn’t sure he could manage it on his own.
His head tipped back slightly, just for a second, a pathetic exhale leaving him before he could stop it. His entire body was tense under you, every nerve lit up and focused entirely on the fact that you were there, that this was happening, that you were choosing to be this close.
You let the dance stretch longer than you needed to, mostly because of how amazed you were with yourself that this didn’t feel like work.
Which was new.
When the music shifted, you slowed, then stopped. You smiled, easing off his lap, retrieving your robe and slipping it back on, but not closing it all the way.
You nudged his arm lightly with yours. “We don’t have to go back out there, you know.”
He glanced at you, then at the door.
“You don’t want to?” he asked.
You shook your head, a small smile playing on your lips. “We could just… stay here and talk.”
He studied you for a second, like he was trying to figure out if this was another part of the act.
He concluded that it wasn’t.
“I’d like that,” he said, but what he really meant was— I don’t want to share you.
—
The next time you saw him was a pleasant surprise.
You were at the club again, and he was already there, waiting for you. He was sitting in the same seat, posture just as straight, eyes already fixed on you like he’d been tracking your every movement from the second you stepped on stage, you didn’t look away this time. You smiled.
You finished your set quicker than you meant to. Or maybe it just felt that way, your body moving through motions it knew too well while your attention stayed anchored to him.
The second the music faded you were already reaching for your robe, already tying it loosely as you made your way straight to the bar without hesitation, sliding onto the stool beside him like this had always been the plan.
“Hey, you,” you said, leaning your arm against the counter, angling yourself toward him in a way that felt natural like you’d done this a hundred times instead of once before.
His head turned immediately, as if he’d been waiting for the exact moment you’d come down to him.
“Hi,” he said, and it came out gentler this time, like your presence gave him a focal point to cling onto.
“You’re becoming a regular,” you teased.
“I go where you are,” he replied, just as simply as before. You huffed a laugh, shaking your head even as your lips curved because he said things like that so easily, like they weren’t a walking red flag.
Talking to him felt as natural as it did before. You teased him about how stiff he still looked, he told you he didn’t know what to do with his hands, you laughed and nudged them onto the bar for him.
You didn’t even notice the way his attention flickered whenever another man else looked at you, didn’t catch the subtle tightening in his teeth when your laugh carried to someone who wasn’t him, didn’t see the way his hand curled slightly around his glass when a man across the room leaned forward like he was considering approaching. You weren’t looking for that. You weren’t looking for danger here.
“Hey,” one of the girls said, tapping your shoulder, pulling you out of the moment.
You turned, already halfway into a smile. “Yeah?”
She tilted her head toward the other end of the bar. “New guy. He’s asking for you.”
You followed her gaze, eyes landing on a man you didn’t recognize. He was well-dressed, confident. He looked like the kind that tipped without hesitation.
Ah. Opportunity. Easy money.
When you turned back to Dex, your smile had shifted, not entirely false but not entirely his anymore either. “Duty calls,” you said lightly, pushing off the stool.
You were already adjusting your robe, already stepping back into the version of yourself that knew exactly how to handle men like that, already moving away before you could think too hard about the fact that you didn’t actually want to.
Behind you, Dex didn’t move, didn’t look away.
He watched the man who had asked for you, watched the way you smiled at him, the way you leaned in just slightly.
Jealousy bubbled up in his chest. It was cold and unfamiliar to you but deeply familiar to him.
Where you saw a job, he saw a threat.
And the difference between those two things was about to matter more than you realized.
—
At the end of the night, you expected to find an empty club. You didn’t think that Dex would still be there.
You invited him backstage. It wasn’t a big deal— all the other girls had left when you said you’d count for them since you have a day off tomorrow. Besides, you didn’t want him to be alone out there, waiting for nothing.
He watched as you sat cross-legged on a leather couch with a small pile of bills spread out in front of you, sorting them out with ease. It wasn’t complicated work. It just took time.
Dex awkwardly stood there, not really knowing what to do. You glanced up once and went back to counting.
“You… don’t have to stay,” you said eventually. Your voice was brighter than it should’ve been for how late it was. “It’s a slow night. I’ve got it.”
Dex didn’t answer. Instead, he sat on the edge of the couch near your feet. After a moment, he picked up a small stack of bills you’d already sorted and aligned the edges to perfection.
“I can help,” he said simply.
You finally looked at him then, amused. “You’re volunteering to count stripper money?”
He paused for half a beat, like he was recalibrating how that sounded. “I can count.”
That made you laugh.
“Alright,” you said, pushing a small stack toward him. “Go on then. Try not to get overwhelmed.”
He started counting beside you.
It should’ve been nothing. Just paper, numbers, time passing. But Dex was precise, and that made the task feel different. He didn’t rush. He didn’t miss anything. When you miscounted one stack out of habit, he corrected it without pointing it out directly, he’d just set the extra bill back in place like it had always belonged there.
“You’re weirdly good at this,” you said after a while, leaning back on your hands.
Dex didn’t look up. “It’s not complicated.”
“It is when I do it,” You groaned playfully.
That earned you the faintest smile, like he wasn’t entirely sure he was allowed to have it. He handed you the last stack.
You let out a breath and tilted your head back against the couch. “Or maybe I just find it boring. Well, at least it is when you’re not here.”
Dex looked at you.
“I like it,” he said simply.
You raised a brow. “Counting money?”
He tilted his head.
“…This,” he corrected.
And for a moment, neither of you moved. The club kept thudding faintly around you, distant and unimportant, while the bills sat forgotten between your hands.
And for once, you didn’t get up.
“We…” you said after a moment, tapping your finger idly against the edges of the paper, “we should probably stop meeting like this.”
“Like what?”
You gestured vaguely around you— at the bills, the mirror, the locker. “We should meet at Third Space,” you added casually, like it wasn’t a decision you’d already made. It was the cafè he claimed to have known you from.
“I—uh…” He cleared his throat slightly. “Yeah. I’ll be there tomorrow morning.”
“Good,” you said, finally setting the stack on the pile, “I’ll see you then.”
—
You almost didn’t believe he’d show, not because he didn’t seem like the type to follow through, but because clients you liked didn’t usually hold up outside of the club.
Daylight stripped things down, took away the illusion. Made everything too real, too visible, too easy to question.
Third Space was always busy in the mornings. You ordered, collecting your drink before you let your eyes wander. You saw him immediately. He sat like he always did, straight-backed, eyes already on you like he’d clocked your entrance way before you even spotted him. Your heart did a small, annoying flip in your chest.
“Good morning,” you said as you slid into the chair across from him, setting your cup down. “Both early, are we?”
“I didn’t want to miss you,” he said, and it wasn’t smooth, it wasn't charming. It just sat there between you, a little too honest for seven in the morning.
You just hummed, studying him properly in the daylight, noting the same things you had before, only everything clearer now.
“If this is your usual spot,” you said, wrapping your hands around your cup. “I would’ve noticed you.”
“You didn’t.” He said without a shred of humour, and you tilted your head slightly, considering him, trying to decide if that was strange or just… him.
“What do you get?” you asked, steering the conversation for the both of you.
“The same thing you do.”
Oh?
You let out a breath that turned into a small smile. Mostly because you didn’t know what to do with that.
Maybe it didn’t matter. Not when sitting across from him felt like, for the first time in a long time, your conversations didn’t require effort or calculation or strategy.
While you weren’t overthinking this, Dex wasn’t so lucky.
He had always relied on structure. It was the only thing that kept the world from slipping into noise. He had patterns and routines that made people predictable and therefore manageable. He categorized everything: threats, variables, outcomes. Even people had their place. But you didn’t.
He had tried, sitting across from you now with his hands wrapped too tightly around a cup, to assign you a functional title: distraction, temporary interest, or low-risk variable. None of it held. Every time he reached for another definition, something in it broke apart, leaving him with nothing but the fact that he wanted to be here.
He told himself he wouldn’t come back tomorrow. There was no reason to. You hadn’t offered anything concrete, nothing useful, nothing that justified him breaking his habit. By his own standards, this was already inefficient. And yet, the next morning, he found himself at the same table again, a bit later this time, correcting for your previous arrival window. He noted the inconsistency even as he adjusted for it. For the first time in a long time, Dex allowed something in his life to exist without fixing it.
—
The third time you met him at Third Space, you were late.
Not late in any meaningful way, only five, maybe ten minutes. When came in, you noticed Dex was exactly where you expected him to be, seated at the same table near the window, untouched drink in front of him like he’d ordered it out of obligation rather than want.
His eyes found you immediately. Like he’d been waiting, and now that you were here, something had clicked back into place.
You smiled as you ordered before making your way over, sliding into the chair across from him, setting your cup down like you hadn’t kept him waiting at all.
“You look like you’ve been conducting surveillance,” you said, glancing at his untouched drink. “Should I be concerned, or flattered?”
“I was watching the door,” he said.
You let out a laugh, leaning back into your chair. “Yeah, that part I got. I meant more like… was I the target, or is this just how you pass time?”
“You were the target,” he said, just as evenly.
That shouldn’t have been funny, but it was.
“Wow,” you shook your head playfully, dragging your fingers lightly along the rim of your cup. “Straight to the point. You’re really committed to this whole… unsettling thing, huh?”
“I’m not…” He caught himself, then took a deep breath. His mouth twitched into a small smile. “I haven’t been waiting long. It’s still warm,” he said, touching the mug. You didn’t realise he was lying.
“Good,” you hummed, leaning back in your chair like you were settling in properly now. “I’d hate to think I kept you.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” he admitted, finally taking a sip.
You tilted your head, as if you were deciding what to do with that.
“Still,” you said. “I’d hate to be wasting your time.”
“Do you even know how to do that?” he asked genuinely.
“What?” You raised a brow, reaching for your drink. “Waste time?”
“With people,” he said, then hesitated. He was deciding how much to say. “You seem… selective.”
You should’ve known. If he was really ex military or fed, like you suspected, he must have resources. He must have done research on you, a background check, perhaps. You have been careful with cleaning up your reputation, of course. But you were aware you had cracks. After all, some men have made anonymous Reddit posts about your extortion, and god knows what other forums your name has appeared in. Still, you didn't think anyone would take it seriously.
“That’s a very polite way of putting it.”
“It’s accurate,” he shrugged, relieved at your rather tame reaction.
You watched him over the rim of your cup as you took another sip. “You’ve been observing me,” you noted.
“A little,” he said, not denying it, though there was something almost sheepish in the way his eyes dipped for half a second before coming back to you.
“I wasn’t trying to be—” he paused, searching for the word. “Intrusive.”
“Oh, I don’t think you’re intrusive,” you said, leaning forward slightly, resting. “You’re just… intense.”
That earned you a small laugh.
“I’m just trying to figure something out,” he admitted, and even he seemed surprised that he did.
You leaned back, intrigued. “Should I be concerned?”
“I don’t know yet,” he said, and there was a hint of dry humor in it now.
“Alright, I’ll bite,” you said. “What’s the mystery?”
He hesitated again. “You don’t really fit,” he said finally.
“Wow,” you blinked. “That sounds like the beginning of a rejection speech.”
“It’s not,” he said quickly, almost instinctively, almost in a panic. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Relax,” you smiled. “I’m kidding. Mostly.” You placed your elbows on the table, curiosity winning out. “Fit where?”
“With how you usually operate,” he said. “You don’t give your time away, not without a reason.”
You let out a sound between a laugh and an acknowledgment.
“Fair,” you said. “And?”
“And I don’t think I’m giving you one,” he added, honest now.
“No,” you said, your fingers idly tracing the edge of your cup. He didn’t really fit the mold for your target. Which is why he wasn’t on the list. “You’re not.”
He nodded, like that confirmed a theory in his mind.
You tilted your head, then asked, “Does that bother you?”
“A little,” he admitted.
You laughed again. You can’t remember the last time you laughed this much without having to pretend a man was funny “God, you’re honest.”
“I just don’t…” He trailed off, then tried again. “I don’t usually choose things without a reason.”
“And I’m one of those things?” you asked lightly.
His eyes held yours. Fuck, you really had no idea, did you?
You didn’t know who he was, didn’t know how he’d always needed something to ground himself. He’d needed a north star, a moral line he could follow and point to the right direction.
And you weren’t that. Not even close.
You weren’t good, not in any objective sense. You manipulated, you extorted, you saw people as opportunities. Even Dex could see that.
And yet.
You were just a girl he’d noticed one day on the street because you were pretty, and somehow that had been enough. Enough for his obsession to linger. Enough to be utterly infatuated. Enough for it to become… this.
He didn’t understand it.
With Eileen and Julie, there had always been structure, a reason. In his mind, there was a path between who they were, why they mattered, why they were good. But with you, there was nothing to map. No logic to follow. You didn’t fit anywhere he knew how to place you.
And still, he kept coming back.
Was this what people meant when they had a crush on someone? Was this what people meant when they said the feeling of love or whatever didn't follow any rhyme or reason?
“Yeah,” he said simply.
“Well,” You leaned back, a small smile still playing at your lips. “That makes two of us.”
He frowned, just slightly. “You’ve never—”
“No,” you cut in gently. “I’ve never gone to coffee with someone I met at the club.” You tapped your fingers lightly against the table, then shrugged. “Maybe I just like you.”
You expected that to smooth it over, but he didn’t look convinced.
“Why?” he asked.
You laughed, dropping your head for a second. Then, you considered his question for a second, then lifted one shoulder dismissively. “Maybe you don’t have to understand it,” you said.
He looked at you like that wasn’t an acceptable answer.
You leaned forward just enough to nudge his arm lightly with yours, grounding the moment before his mind got too heavy.
“Or,” you added, a little playful again, “you can keep trying to figure me out. I’m sure that’ll go well for you.”
That finally got a real reaction— a small huff of a laugh.
“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t think it will.”
You grinned.
“Good,” you said. “Wouldn’t want to make it too easy.”
You talked longer than you meant to, about nothing and everything, your voice filling space where his didn’t, his answers careful, like he was mapping you in real time and adjusting accordingly. He remembered things, small things, things you didn’t even remember saying, and instead of being wary, you let yourself enjoy it, let yourself sit there and convince yourself this was normal.
That was the problem, really.
You didn’t question it. You didn’t question him. You didn’t question why it felt like he had always been there, just outside your line of sight until the moment he decided not to be. You let him become familiar, and before you knew it, you started looking for him in a crowd without admitting you were looking.
He was there the next time you went back, and the time after that. Sometimes, he was earlier than you, sometimes already watching when you walked in, always ready to fall into conversation like it had never stopped, and it slipped into your routine so easily it almost felt like it had always been part of it.
And maybe that was why it took you longer than it should have to notice the pattern.
—
It started as coincidence. You barely registered it, because your world was full of men who come and go like background noise, faces that blur together unless you decide they matter.
Over the next three or four months, a new client would take interest in you. Always the same type, the ones who leaned too close too fast, who let their hands wander, who mistook your patience for permission, and you’d do what you always did. You’d smile, redirected and let them think they were getting somewhere. Let them spend.
They’d come back the next night.
Maybe the night after that.
It was enough time for you to decide whether they were worth keeping, worth working, worth peeling apart slowly for whatever they had to offer.
But now… you had less and less returning clients.
At first, you didn’t question it. Men disappeared all the time. Wives got suspicious. Work got busy. Interest faded. It wasn’t unusual.
Until it kept happening.
Every new man who crossed your path would stay barely long enough to become useful, and then vanish before you could actually use them.
No calls or return nights. You had no second chances to pull something valuable out of them.
It was as if they were just… gone.
It started to bother you.
It wasn’t like you to lose assets like that. You didn’t let opportunities slip through your fingers.
So you started asking, casually at first. You asked the bartenders, the other girls. You asked regulars who noticed more than they let on.
“Hey, what happened to that guy from last week? Connors, I think. He was wearing a grey suit?”
All you got were shrugs.
“Haven’t seen him.”
You asked around again the week after. “What about Browne, the one who booked VIP twice? Dark hair, wedding ring he kept fiddling with?”
You received a blank look from the bouncer.
“Didn’t he come back?”
“No.”
It was wrong. It felt wrong.
And then, because the world had a way of giving you answers whether you wanted them or not, you overheard two men at the far end of the bar. “I heard they found Connors dead in a ditch.”
You froze.
What?
“…yeah, couple days ago. It was messy.”
“Thought it was a robbery?”
“Nah. Didn’t take anything important.”
You told yourself it was a coincidence… Except then it happened again.
You were listening in on another conversation, another half-heard detail slipping through the cracks of a room full of people who thought no one was paying attention.
“Browne’s remains turned up outside the city.”
“There were no suspects.”
“…brutal, apparently.”
Your stomach tightened.
Because you were starting to see the pattern. Every man who crossed your path had disappeared. Two of them were now dead, so you could only assume…
No. That can’t be… right?
“It feels like someone’s finishing things I didn’t even decide to start,” you told one of the other girls, and she just laughed and called you paranoid.
Across the room, Dex sat in his usual place, watching you like he always did.
When your eyes found him, he smiled.
And you smiled back, letting yourself believe, just for a little longer, that nothing was wrong.
After all, even Dex didn’t think of anything being wrong at all.
He didn’t think of what he had done to those men as interference. He thought of it as correction. He had watched the pattern long enough to understand your methods. It was efficient, but it left too many variables unchecked. Too many moments where things could escalate beyond what you could talk your way out of. He had seen the signs, and you handled it. That didn’t mean you should have to.
You gave them time, attention, access, more than they deserved, and in return, they tried to take more. Dex simply made sure they couldn’t. In his mind, it was fair.
He never told you. There wasn’t a reason to. You were safer this way. That was the only metric that mattered. The fact that your world was getting smaller, that your opportunities were being stripped away alongside the risks, didn’t register as a loss to him. Instead, it registered as protection. And if the line between those things blurred, Dex didn’t see it. Or maybe he did and chose not to care.
—
The next night, the club sounded a little louder when a new potential client walked in.
A senator.
He ticked both your boxes: predictable and profitable.
Senator Hale carried himself like a man who had never once been told no in a way that mattered. He had a wedding ring on his finger, reminding you of the leverage sitting pretty on his finger. Men like him were your specialty, men like him were walking safes waiting to be cracked open, and all you saw when you looked at him was his potential: money and information.
He introduced himself to you sweetly, casually mentioning that his ‘ball and chain of a wife’ was overseas on some extravagant socialite trip. He told you that she’d be fucking a twenty-something year old Greek bachelor by now, and that he deserved a fun night of his own.
“I want all your private slots tonight,” he said, thirty minutes in, leaning back like he was ordering another drink instead of a session with you.
Cha-ching.
You smiled the way you always did, already imagining the kind of secrets a man like that might spill if you played it right.
Halfway through the night though, he placed his hand on your waist even though he knew it was against club rules.
“We should get out of here,” he said, like it was a natural escalation.
You tilted your head, amused. “That’s not really how this works.”
He smiled wider. “C’mon. I’ve got a restaurant downtown we can dine in. Let me treat a pretty girl to a meal, yeah?”
You had a bad feeling about it.
But you’d followed worse men and walked away richer every time.
—
In hindsight, you should’ve turned back when you realised that the restaurant was closed.
He told you he owned it. You played along, pretending to be impressed. You followed him upstairs, into a private room without any cameras, lined with a wide oak table and lavish velvet chairs.
Hale told his assistant to get the 1976 Pauillac and an extra glass for you, and it wasn’t long until you both were drinking. You paced yourself, like always, but he didn’t. He drank and drank like he had nothing to lose, like consequences were a concept that existed for other people.
Slowly, his eyes shifted. The way he looked at you changed. He looked less patient and more like he’d already decided how this night was going to end, and you just hadn’t caught up yet.
Still, you played along.
“You’re even prettier up close,” he said, voice slurring now, stepping closer than necessary.
You smiled, already shifting, already preparing to redirect.
“Senator,” you teased lightly. “That kind of flattery costs extra.”
He didn’t laugh. His hand came to your waist and traced further down than you were ever comfortable with.
“Hey,” you scolded, still controlled. “That’s not part of the deal.”
“I think,” Hale growled, leaning in, breathing heavily with alcohol, “I decide what the deal is.”
There it was.
“No. You don’t.” You tried to push his hand away, but his grip was stern, his other hand squeezing your hips painfully as he pulled you up and shoved back against the wall.
“Don’t play games with me,” he said, almost shouting. “Do you know who I am?”
You struggled, adrenaline spiking, every survival instinct kicking in at once. “Let go of me.”
He pushed you again, harder this time, your back hitting the edge of the table before you tried to twist away. But he was stronger, heavier, fueled by ego and the kind of power that had never been challenged.
“You should’ve just fuckin’ taken it,” he sneered.
The moment his hand closed around your throat, squeezing hard enough to cut off sound before it could even form, was the moment you realised that this wasn’t a situation you could talk yourself out of. This man wasn’t thinking about consequences, about exposure, about anything beyond what he wanted in this exact moment, and that made him dangerous in a way even you couldn’t manipulate.
You fought, because there was no other option, nails scraping, body twisting, trying to create space where there wasn’t any.
But his grip only tightening as your resistance escalated. His breath was hot, words spilling out half-formed, like your refusal was an insult instead of a boundary. The room blurred as pressure built in your throat, your lungs straining, every second stretching too long, your thoughts fracturing between panic and fear, where to hit, how to move, how to survive this—
Then, the senator choked.
His grip faltered.
His eyes widened in confusion as his hand flew to his neck.
Then, and only then, did you see why he had suddenly stopped. A knife had buried itself there.
What?
Your brain stalled for half a second, trying to catch up to reality.
You scrambled back the second his body thumped to the floor, air rushing into your lungs in broken, desperate gasps, your hands shaking as you pushed yourself away from him, from the spreading red blood on the carpet.
Your eyes snapped toward the open window, curtains shifting, like nothing had happened at all.
Someone had been there. Someone was there.
You pushed yourself up, legs unsteady but moving anyway, adrenaline carrying you faster than thought could keep up. The balcony was closer than the door and your body chose it before your mind could argue, climbing, slipping, dropping down harder than you meant to.
After that, you ran.
You didn’t look back. You didn’t stop to think about Hale, the knife, or the way everything happened so precisely; it couldn't have been luck. Your heart pounded too loudly, your thoughts too scattered to form anything coherent beyond go, go, go.
This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened: Your clients disappearing, dying.
It was the first time you’ve witnessed it, though.
You reached your apartment and slammed the door behind you, pressing your back against it.
Safe. You were safe. You told yourself that over and over, like if you said it enough it would feel true.
—
You didn’t sleep, not in any way that counted. You drifted in and out of shallow rest, your body exhausted but your mind refusing to shut off, replaying everything in fragments in your mind. Every time you came close to slipping under, your body jerked you back up again like it didn’t trust the dark anymore.
By the time morning dragged itself in through the floor-to-ceiling windows of your apartment, you were already awake, already pacing, already halfway through a cup of coffee that had gone cold in your hand because you kept forgetting to drink it.
You told yourself you were fine. You said it out loud once, just to hear it, just to see if it sounded convincing. It didn’t.
At around 11 AM, your fingers hovered over your phone longer than you wanted to admit. You didn’t really have people to call on stuff like this. You had colleagues, you had contacts, you had old clients who thought they mattered more than they did, but you didn’t have… someone you could just ask to come over without a reason that benefited you.
And yet.
Your thumb tapped Dex’s name before you could overthink it. He had given you your number after the first day you had coffee together at Third Space. Never in a million years did you think you’d text him for this.
When you have the time, can you come over, please?
You stared at the message, then added your address beneath it, because of course he didn’t know where you lived. Because you were careful, because you were smart and all that bullshit you keep telling yourself— and then you hit send anyway.
You had just enough time to refill your water before you heard a knock on your apartment door.
You froze.
“…what?” you muttered, more to yourself than anything, setting your glass down somewhere behind you without looking.
Whoever was out there knocked again.
You moved toward the door, your stomach feeling uneasy.
You opened it.
Dex stood there. He didn't look out of breath or rushed. His hands were relaxed at his sides, posture straight like always.
You blinked at him.
“What?” you said again, because apparently that was all your brain could produce.
He tilted his head slightly, like he didn’t understand the question. “You asked me to come.”
“I… yeah, I know, but I just…” you shook your head, stepping aside to let him in, still staring at him like if you looked long enough, an explanation would click into place. “That was, like, five minutes ago.”
“I was nearby,” he said with no elaboration and even less of an attempt to make it sound more believable than it was.
You stared at him for another second as if your instincts were trying to flag something and you were just… too tired to listen.
“Oh,” you said finally. “Oh. Okay.”
You shut the door behind him, and for a second you just stood there, your back to the door, your hand still on the handle, trying to regulate you breathing
Dex didn’t move far. He stepped into your space like he was aware of it in a way most people weren’t, taking in exits, windows, angles.
You pushed off the door.
You gestured toward the couch as you moved past him. He sat down.
You hovered for a second before dropping into the cushion next to him, tucking one leg under you, your fingers fidgeting with the sleeve of your shirt before you forced them to still. The apartment felt different with him in it.
“You know,” you started, tilting your head, a forced smile tugging at your lips because this was how you cope, “most people, when they come over for the first time, they ask how a stripper can afford a place like this.”
Dex didn’t even look.
“I…” he started, then stopped, like he was recalibrating mid-thought. “That’s not what I’m here for.”
Your smile faltered.
“I’m here because you asked for me,” he insisted.
You let out a small breath, your shoulders dropping a fraction as the performance slipped, as the version of you that joked and teased and deflected didn’t quite fit anymore.
“Right,” you said under your breath, running a hand through your hair. “Right, yeah.”
You looked at him, at his hazel eyes, at his scar, at the way his elbows rested on his legs.
“Something happened last night,” you said, and you told him everything.
And you didn't tell the polished version you told to your friend in the hospital. You told him about the senator, about the way he’d looked at you like you were already his before you’d even said yes. You told him about the restaurant, about how empty it had been, how wrong it had felt the second the door closed behind you. Your voice wavered once, and you hated that it did, hated that it had that kind of hold on you, but you didn’t stop.
You told him about the fight, about the moment you realized you weren’t going to be able to talk your way out of it.
“And then—” you swallowed, your throat tightening just slightly at the memory, “he just… stopped.”
Dex’s eyes didn’t leave your face.
“There was this sound,” you continued, like saying it in a lower volume might make it make more sense. “I didn’t even notice it at first. And then he just—” you gestured vaguely, your hand cutting through the air like you could recreate it, “he let go.”
You looked up at him then, searching his face like maybe he’d have an answer you didn’t.
“There was a knife in his neck, but I didn’t see anyone,” you added quickly, like you needed him to understand that you hadn’t imagined it. “The window was open, and I just… I ran. I didn’t think, I didn’t—” you let out a breath that came out more like a pathetic laugh. “I didn’t question it.”
You dropped your eyes to your hands again, your thumb dragging absently over your knuckles.
“I called a friend this morning," you said anxiously. “She works at the hospital.”
Dex didn’t interrupt.
“He’s alive,” you said. “She said he’s going to make a full recovery.”
Your jaw tightened slightly, your fingers stilling where they rested in your lap.
“I should feel relieved, right? That I didn’t just watch someone die in front of me.” you said under your breath, more to yourself than to him. “That’s what a… decent person would feel.”
You let out a breath, shaking your head faintly.
“But I don’t.”
It felt wrong to… admit that.
“I keep thinking about it,” you continued, your voice dropping lower, more honest now than you were used to being out loud. “About what he did. About what he was going to do.” Your throat tightened again, but you pushed through it. “And I just—”
You hesitated, then said it anyway. “I kind of wish he was dead.”
You huffed out a quiet, humorless laugh, scrubbing a hand over your face like you could wipe the thought away after the fact. “That’s... fuck, that’s such a horrible thing to say.” Your eyes flicked back up to him. “You must think I’m a terrible person.”
“No. Not at all,” he said without second guessing.
Your fingers curled into the fabric of your sleeve, knuckles whitening as you tried to hold yourself together. But you’re slipping, everything is slipping, your thoughts tangling over each other faster than you can sort them.
“I shouldn’t—” your voice projected out thinner than you wanted it to be, your chest rising too fast. “I shouldn’t feel like that, I shouldn’t—arghh! What kind of person wishes —”
Your breath hitched again.
“I could’ve died,” you blurted, like your brain was jumping tracks, like it’s trying to piece a moral justification together and failing. “I… he—” your hand came up instinctively to your throat, fingers pressing lightly against skin that still felt too wrong to articulate. “And I’m just sitting here saying I wish he was dead like that makes me, what, justified? That’s—”
Your words broke apart into nothing, as you’re breathing spiral fast and your mind even faster….
“Hey,” Dex reached out, hesitantly holding your thigh. “Look at me.”
You didn't want to, not really. You did not wish to be seen, to be perceived, but your eyes lifted anyway.
“It’s not your fault,” he says, firmer now, shaking his head once, as if saying How could anything possibly be your fault?
Your lips part, but nothing came out.
“You should hate him,” he said, voice smaller now but no less intense, as if he knew these feelings through personal involvement. Though hate was a much nicer word that you would’ve used.
As your chest started to hurt as much as your neck did, you became hyper-aware of him. Of how close he was. Of the way he wasn’t rationalising, wasn’t judging, wasn’t trying to fix you.
Your body leaned toward him, and something in you gave way.
It was too much to process, too much to think through, and before you could think, before you could stop yourself, you moved. You closed the distance, your hand caught against his shirt as you leaned in, and then your mouth was on his.
It’s not graceful, and not at all controlled.
It felt impulsive and desperate as you kissed him like you’re trying to ground yourself in anything but the memory of last night replaying behind your eyes.
For a split second, he went still. That was when you realized what you’ve done.
You pulled back like you’d burned yourself, your breath hitching hard, your hand dropping away from him as your brain scrambled to catch up.
“Oh,” you choked, your eyes wide. “I’m sorry, I… I don’t know why I did that.”
The words rushed out, tripping over each other.
“I just… I had a long night and I didn’t sleep and I think I’m just—” you let out a shaky laugh that didn’t quite land, your eyes darting away because you couldn’t quite look at him now. “You know. I’m just fucked up and craving human attention. That’s all. It’s- it didn’t mean anything, I…”
You never got to finish.
His hand came up to interrupt, fingers closing around your jawline, not harsh but firm enough to stop you mid-spiral, to turn your face back toward him before you could escape into your own excuses.
When he kissed you, it was nothing like yours.
There was no hesitation in it. It was intentional.
His mouth pressed into yours with a force that stole the breath you’d just barely managed to get back, not rough enough to hurt but strong enough to make it clear that this wasn’t a mistake, this wasn’t something he’s letting you brush off or explain away. His grip tightened just slightly, holding you there as your thoughts scattered all over again, but this time it wasn’t panic that flooded through you.
You made a small, involuntary sound against his mouth, and his response was immediate, deepening just enough to make your heart race.
Your fingers found the edges of his shirt again without you realizing it, and for a moment, you forgot.
You forgot about last night, about the fear, the guilt, the way your lungs had struggled for air, because right now you were breathing just fine.
When he finally pulled back, it wasn’t far.
“…that,” you managed, a little wrecked, “didn’t feel like nothing.”
“C’mere,” he said, like it wasn’t a question at all.
And before you could second-guess it, before your mind could start building walls out of hesitation and overthinking and the thousand reasons you usually didn’t let things like this happen, he was already lifting you. One arm under your legs, the other steady at your back, pulling you against him like you weighed nothing at all. You gasped out of surprise, your hands instinctively circling at his shoulders.
“You don’t know—” you started, but it came out weaker than you intended.
“I know where your bedroom is,” he said simply.
And that was it.
You let yourself go quiet.
Your room felt different when you got there. He set you down like you were fragile, and for a second neither of you spoke.
“You’re shaking,” he said after a moment
“I’m not,” you tried automatically, but it wasn’t convincing. Not even to you.
“I’ve got you,” he reassured you as Amish as he reassured himself. “I’ve got you.”
Whatever restraint you still had left didn’t stand a chance after that.
You pulled him down to you, and this time there was no apology in it, no confusion, no frantic attempt to explain it away afterward. Perhaps you needed to feel the touch of another human being. Perhaps, after not having a choice, having chosen him felt like its own kind of power. Perhaps, it was both.
Even then, that little voice in your head said this wasn’t smart. This wasn’t you. You didn’t sleep with people you know from work, or seek out an emotional connection, because you never needed anybody. Because you were selfish. Because you only ever looked out for yourself.
You knew that. And you knew exactly what this looked like from the outside. How quickly it was happening, how easily you were letting him in.
You knew it wasn’t healthy.
But fuck healthy.
So you let him kiss you like he meant it, and you had already decided that you were letting him take you apart, piece by piece, simply because you wanted him to.
—
Oh, he was good to you.
Did it really matter, what you asked him to do to you, that even surprised yourself? Does it matter, what he gave you to reach a catharsis, if you were the one who wanted it?
What mattered was that he was very sweet afterwards.
You had showered with him, the hot water doing nothing to fully untangle the haze in your mind. When you were done drying yourself, you came out to your fully-made marshmallow of a bed.
You laid beside him without thinking, like your body had already decided this was where he belonged for now. He adjusted immediately when you settled in, one arm slipping around you.
“I will never let anyone hurt you,” he said, and he recited it like a vow. He sounded resolute, like this was a line he had crossed and couldn’t come back from.
He knew what you were. You were not a North Star, he had come to terms with it long ago. But it didn’t repel him. You didn’t need fixing. If anything, it made it easier.
You’d never expect him to be better, and he didn’t need you to be. There was no standard here, no expectation from either side. You were something to… have. To sit across from, to listen to, to exist near. It didn’t improve him. It didn’t make sense.
And yet, he had chosen you, over and over again, without reason, without structure, without an end goal.
For Dex, it was the closest thing he had ever come to wanting something just because he wanted it.
Your fingers curled slightly into the fabric of your duvet, and you nodded. You believed him, you really did.
He shifted just enough to press a kiss into your hair, staying there like he wasn’t in a rush to move away.
Dex didn’t even understand what he was doing at first.
He didn’t understand why his hand kept moving over your skin absent-mindedly. He didn’t understand why he wanted to pepper your skin with kisses. He didn’t understand why he wasn’t distant, like he had always had before.
This wasn’t efficient. It wasn’t necessary.
And yet, he couldn’t stop.
You were warm against him, breathing slower now, settling into his side. That part, he understood. You trusted him. That was something he had built, something he could measure.
But this desire to stay exactly where he was, to keep touching you just to feel that you were still there, was new.
His hand stilled for a moment against your arm, like he was testing if he could stop, and something in him resisted it immediately. His fingers resumed their path without thought, slower this time.
Oh.
As his fingers reached your waist, you melted into him without thinking.
And that was the problem. Because if your mind had been clearer you might have noticed things that didn’t feel quite right.
You might have wondered how he walked through your apartment like he had done it before.
How he had been able to find your bedroom on the first try, when all your doors looked the same.
How he had returned with a glass of water already poured, like he knew which cabinet held your glasses.
How, when you’d asked him to pass you a towel after shower, he had gone straight to the second cupboard to the left, third row down.
—
A month later, everything was in order. At least on paper.
That’s what the lawyers said anyway. They said you reached a resolution. It made such an ugly act sound almost respectable.
The settlement came signed with expensive pens, and in the end you reached an agreement of seven figures, carefully divided between you and the club.
They told you to take it.
They asked you to take it so everyone would be happy. So everyone would ‘benefit.’
And in the end, you did.
Because this wasn’t your battlefield. You didn’t fight men like Senator Hale under in front of judges who cared more about optics than truth. So you signed where they pointed, nodded when expected, and let them call it closure.
But it didn’t feel like closure.
So you did what you always did when something didn’t sit right with you. You worked around it.
You found a gap.
The NDA was careful, but it wasn’t perfect. It said nothing about anonymous tips, nothing about information that simply… surfaced. Nothing about whether or not Mrs. Hale was allowed to receive little packages of paper upon paper of proof that her husband wasn’t as faithful as she thought he was.
So one evening, you sent it.
In the box were photos, messages, and notes from other girls about Hale’s… behaviour and lack of manners, to say the least. Technically, these statements weren’t yours, but it might as well have been.
You told yourself that was the end of it.
For a few days, you almost believed it.
—
The alley you took as your shortcut home was darker than you remembered that night.
The hum of traffic filled in the lower frequencies of your ear, the neon from the main street barely reaching this far, bleeding weakly against brick and pavement.
You shouldn’t have taken this shortcut, not when you knew he was alive.
But you had a long night, and your body moved on instinct, carving through the familiar path you’d walked a hundred times before.
So you didn’t think anything would go wrong until you heard a small, metallic click.
You stopped, like your feet had slammed a brake so hard it locked everything else in place.
“Well,” a voice rasped, ruined and jagged. “Look at that.”
Your stomach dropped as you turned.
Senator Hale stood a few feet away, just inside the spill of dim light. He had been waiting for you for some time now, with a gun pointed straight to your head.
Senator Hale looked… wrong. He was much more alive than you last saw him, and this version of him was something else entirely. His suit hung looser, wrinkled like he hadn’t cared enough to fix it. The scar along his neck was thick and uneven, an angry reminder of what should've ended him. His voice barely held together.
But his eyes hadn’t changed at all.
They locked onto you with the same entitlement.
“You,” he said, shaking his gun just slightly. “You f-fucking bitch.”
Your heartbeat didn’t spike the way it should have. It didn’t race or panic or spiral. Instead, it slowed, like you were expecting this, like you were ready to be taken out of this world if it meant that he got to suffer because of it.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you said, and your voice came out steady enough to almost convince yourself.
He laughed. It sounded wet and broken.
“Don’t,” he snapped, “Don’t insult me like that.”
He stepped closer, the gun shaking with tremor in his hand.
“My wife,” he continued, voice tightening, “gets a package out of nowhere. And suddenly my entire life is over again!” His head tilted slightly, studying you like he already knew the answer and just wanted to hear you lie. “You really think I wouldn’t figure it out?”
You didn’t move.
“You’re the only one who would’ve done it,” he went on. “The only one with the guts. Or the stupidity.” His lip curled, sinister. “Probably both.”
You felt your stomach settle. This was it. You couldn’t get out of this one, you couldn’t think of another angle to approach a man in rage.
You exhaled, your shoulders loosening in a way that felt almost like relief. “Do it,” you said through gritted teeth, you dared.
For a second, disappointment flickered across his eyes. Or maybe it was irritation that you weren’t giving him what he wanted.
Fear.
He wanted fear.
Instead, you gave him nothing.
His knuckles tightened till it was red, pointing it straight to you. “Oh, I will—”
Then, he gasped, his hand jerking uncontrollably. His gun wavered, dipping just slightly as confusion flashed across his face.
Then, he screamed.
You didn’t understand why, until your eyes dropped to see a knife had buried itself through his hand.
Through the hand holding the gun.
It was undoubtedly the same throwing knife that saved you in the restaurant.
The gun hit the ground with a dull, useless clatter.
Hale collapsed to his knees, clutching at his wrist, as he demanded you to help him.
Your focus tunneled. Suddenly all you could hear was your own breathing, Hale’s wet, broken gasps and footsteps behind you that you already knew by heart.
Dex stepped out of the shadows like he was born in it.
It was him, you realised.
It had always been him.
And you weren’t shocked at all. Perhaps, some part of you knew, had always known it was him. But your brain worked in funny ways, and apparently, it wanted you to compartmentalise information from yourself.
Until now.
Because now, you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything that had been happening around you happened because of him.
Every man who disappeared before you could finish what you started. Every opportunity that vanished just as it turned dangerous. Every moment where things should’ve gone wrong, but didn’t.
Dex saved you.
Dex cleaned up your messes before you even decided they were messes.
Dex knew your apartment. Dex watched over you,
You should have seen it then. You should have called it what it was.
Stalking, obsession, hyperfixation.
You didn’t.
Because somewhere along the line, your mind had convinced yourself otherwise.
He was just a guardian angel with blood on his hands.
“Dex…” you breathed out.
Hale was screaming, writhing, clutching at the knife through his hand, his voice scraping raw against the walls of the alley, but he didn’t matter. Not really.
Dex didn’t even look at him.
He just walked forward, unbothered, like this was nothing more than a task he’d already completed in his head. He stomped his shoe on Hale’s wrist and the sound that tore out of him after that was almost inhuman. Next, he kicked his ankle, breaking it in just the right places so he couldn’t run if he wanted to.
Dex bent down, picked up the gun that had now clattered on to the asphalt, and checked it casually before offering them up for you.
“I didn’t want to take this moment from you.”
This?
Oh. He meant he didn’t want to take the pleasure of killing Hale away from you.
Your chest hitched, your breath catching in your throat as tears blurred your vision, because nothing about this was normal, nothing about this was right, and yet…
You felt seen.
“I’ve never…” your voice broke, shaking, your hands curling in on themselves. “I’ve never shot a gun before.”
You sounded small, so adorably helpless in Dex’s ears.
“That’s okay,” his eyebrows softened as he stepped closer.
His hand found yours, guiding your fingers as he placed the gun into your grip. You didn’t resist.
“Good girl,” he said quietly.
A gut feeling twisted low in your stomach— wrong, so wrong— but you didn’t pull away.
Instead, you leaned into him.
He moved behind you then, his chest at your back, his arm wrapping around you, his hand closing over yours where it held the gun.
You could feel him breathe.
“Let me show you,” he whispered, his lips touching the shell of your ears.
Your body trembled.
Hale was begging now. He was crying. Promising things that meant nothing. “Please! Please, I won’t… just don’t—”
“Safety’s off,” Dex continued patiently, like he couldn’t even hear him. His fingers adjusted yours carefully. “Keep your finger here. Not yet.”
You were hyper-aware of everything— of Dex’s hands guiding yours, of the weight of the gun, of how your body reacted to his voice.
“I can’t,” you whispered, your voice cracking. “Dex, I—”
“You’re strong,” he cooed, kissing your cheekbone lightly. “You can do it, baby.”
You closed your eyes, trying to process everything.
You were shaking harder now, your fingers barely steady, your breath hitching in uneven bursts as tears slid freely down your face, but you didn’t pull away because you didn’t want to.
Dex adjusted your aim, his body pressing closer to you. “Right there,” he guided gently. “That’s it. I’ve got you.”
Hale’s voice broke completely. “Please, please! she doesn’t have to—”
His hand closed over yours, steadying the tremor you couldn’t control.
“You don’t have to rush,” he told you calmly, “he’s not going anywhere.”
Hale’s voice cracked in the background, begging, breaking. You barely heard it.
“I’ve got you,” Dex said again, softer this time. You could feel the hollow of his cheek in your hair, and it felt comforting. “You’re safe.”
Safe.
It felt warm and suffocating all at once.
Your breath hitched. “I don’t know if I can—”
“You can,” he reassured, encouraging, coaxing your darker nature out. “I know you can. You’re my girl.”
Your sense of self snapped into place like a lock turning.
It was a lot to process— his hand over yours, steadying the tremor, his breath warm against your ear like he wasn’t guiding you through a monstrous act. It was like this version of you, the one shaking, the one furious, the one willing to pull the trigger, was the only version he had ever wanted.
So here he was, holding your hand steady while you pointed a gun at a man who had tried to break you.
“I love you,” you whispered without thinking. The confession tore out of you desperately.
Of course you did. You loved him for not asking you to be better. You loved him for choosing you. You loved him because you were going to do the worst thing you will ever do, and he was fucking walking you through it.
His grip tightened, not expecting to hear that here. To hear that now.
“I love you, too,” he said back, like it had never been a question, like he had known it long before you did. His forehead pressed against your temple, possessive and gentle all the same. “I’ve always loved you.”
The words didn’t comfort you.
They consumed you.
And that certainty made it easier to let go.
Your vision tunneled. Your thoughts fractured as Hale begged for you to stop, as he cried, as he called you both fucked up and demanded to know what kind of sick humiliation ritual this was—
And before you could stop yourself, you left absolution wash over you.
Dex’s fingers tightened slightly over yours, as if to say, go on.
Your finger pulled, and the gun went off.
Hale hit the ground.
There was a bullet in his head. He was definitely dead now.
For a second, you felt nothing.
The sound didn’t deafen you, the recoil didn’t hurt you. Your perception of who you were as a human being didn’t shatter or explode. It just stalled, like the world had decided to wait and see what you would do with it.
You stared at him, your brain scrambling to process it, to reach an excuse. Self-defense or accident — anything that didn’t sound like what it actually was. Your hands felt distant, like they didn’t belong to you anymore, like they had acted on their own and left you behind to deal with it.
You had always been careful. You didn’t do irreversible. You didn’t cross lines you couldn’t step back from.
But this didn’t feel like a line.
It felt like there had never been one at all.
Oh.
Oh.
Fuck.
You stared at him. At what you’d done.
Your hand went slack, and the gun slipped from your fingers, clattering distantly in the alley.
A broken sound tore out of you, and you weren’t even sure you recognised it as your own.
Suddenly, your knees gave out. Dex caught you before you hit the ground.
He wrapped his arms around you immediately, pulling you in like he’d been waiting for this, like this was the part he understood best.
“I’m so proud of you, baby,” he mumbled into your hair, voice raspy. “So fucking proud.”
Your head felt like it was spinning a million miles an hour.
“I… killed him,” you choked, your voice splintering as reality crashed down in waves. “Dex, I… he’s—he’s a very powerful man. They’re going to know! It’s going to come back to me, they’re going to find me, I—”
Your words spiraled, faster, louder, your breathing breaking apart completely as panic took hold.
“They’re going to look for me,” you whispered, your grip tightening on him like you could disappear into his chest. “I’m done… I’m dead, I’m fucking dead—”
“Hey,” he interrupted.
His hand came up to cradle the back of your head, pressing you closer as his lips brushed against your hair, then your temple, and then, in a flurry of fluttering kisses, he reached the corner of your mouth.
“Remember what I said?” he said firmly, pushing a strand of hair behind your ears. The gesture felt so alien to him, like he’d never done it before. And yet, when it came to you, it felt so right. “Nothing is going to take you away from me. Nothing.”
For a moment after, he didn’t move. It amazed him, even after a month with you, that none of this felt forced anymore. Affection had never been necessary before, never useful. And yet, with you, it came naturally, like it was dormant, and now it had finally found a reason to exist.
He brushed his thumb lightly along your temple, and it was amazing how easily he wanted to keep going, to keep touching.
Whatever this was, whatever you had pulled out of him, it wasn’t something he could put back.
So he held you closer as your breath hitched, hiccuping sobs forcing its way out of your lungs, Hale’s blood now pooling by your heels.
“I’m going to keep you safe, okay?”
He said it like a promise. Like a vow.
You should’ve been terrified of him. Of what he was. Of what you had just become standing beside him.
Instead, you melted into him, your body going weak with it.
“Okay?” He asked, wanting confirmation.
All you could do was nod. Your fingers tightened in his shirt as he pulled you to your feet, guiding you away from the body, away from the alley, away from everything you had just become.
Because whatever waited behind you — justice or consequences— it didn’t matter as much as the man beside you.
The one who saw you at your worst and called you good. The one who turned violence into devotion. The one who promised you safety with blood still fresh on his hands.
So when he helped you out that alley, you didn’t look back.
Maybe you could’ve.
Maybe there had been a moment, somewhere between the first lie and the first shot, where you could have chosen differently. Where you could have walked away, untangled yourself, called this what it was.
But that didn’t matter anymore.
He was utterly yours now, in the same twisted way that you were utterly his.
Because love, you were starting to understand, was never meant to be gentle.
It had teeth.
–end.
