I EMBRACED THE WORLD

Chapter Seven: What Dada Wants

She stepped outside into the one sight she'd spent years hoping never to see.

Sanje's bodyguards stood in a loose half-circle across the back lawn — men well into their fifties, hard-faced, guns held like they'd long since stopped feeling the weight of them. And kneeling in front of Sanje herself was a man Princess didn't recognize, his face already swollen and bloodied, begging for his life with a desperation usually reserved for prayer.

Sanje watched him the way she might watch weather pass. Nothing in her face moved.

"Cess." She didn't look away from the man on the ground. "Here."

She held something out. It took Princess a moment to understand what she was being handed, and another moment after that to understand what she was being asked to do with it.

"Dada." Her voice came out smaller than she wanted it to. "I can't do this."

"I told you." Sanje's tone didn't rise, which was somehow worse than if it had. "I want you to be like me. Do you know what that means, Cess? It means there's no room left in you for mercy you can't afford."

The man on the ground was still pleading, his voice fraying into something wordless. Princess's hand was shaking around the weight in her palm. Every instinct in her wanted to drop it, wanted to run back through the door she'd just come out of and pretend none of this existed — but Sanje was watching her with the patient, terrible attention of someone who had never once accepted no as a finished sentence.

She didn't remember deciding. She only remembered the moment being over — the sound of it, the silence after — and Sanje's hand closing warm and approving over her shoulder like nothing at all had just happened.

"Congratulations." Sanje was almost smiling. "That's my daughter. From now on, I'll teach you everything you need to know about handling a weapon. This one's yours now — you earned it."

Princess said nothing. She wasn't sure, standing there in the dark with her ears still ringing, whether the version of herself who might have refused had ever really existed, or whether Sanje had simply spent years quietly making sure she wouldn't.