Control was never about force. It wasn’t about shouting, or breaking, or even demanding. True control was quieter than that. It was steady, patient, undeniable. It was presence so unshakable that everything else bent around it. Standing in the candlelit glow of my penthouse, watching Cheyenne hesitate just inside the door, I felt the curve of that bending. She was already caught in it, even if she hadn’t yet admitted it.
Her breath came too fast, shallow but sharp, her chest rising and falling like she was trying to calm herself but failing miserably. Her eyes never quite settled—flicking from the windows, to the table, to the floor, to me—and yet, when they landed on me, they stuck as if pinned there by something she didn’t have the strength to fight. She wanted safety, distance, answers
