That's not what I want.
I wantMaster.
I want the man who made me hold positions until my whole body was shaking. Who circled me with a crop and corrected every microscopic flaw in my posture. Who looked at me like I was a problem to solve, a system to perfect.
I want Giovanni's chaos met with Jino's structure.
Monster and Master.
Pain and precision.
The perfect fucking circle where I exist in the overlap, claimed utterly and completely by two men in two devastatingly different ways.
For one perfect day, I had that.
Now Jino's treating me like his trauma case again.
"What are you thinking about?" His voice rumbles against my back.
I stare at the concrete wall. At the shadows the single bulb casts across the stone.
"I'm thinking about yesterday." My voice sounds small. Defeated. I hate it. "I want that back."
"Yesterday I made you cry."
"Yesterday you made me into something." I turn in his arms. Force myself to meet those ice-blue eyes. "I want to be your sub in training, Jino. I want you to guide me into the life of Giovanni's slave. My King's subject."
The words hang between us.
His expression doesn't change. Doesn't soften with pity or harden with approval.
Just... studies me.
"That's all very fucked up, Emmaleen."
The use of my name—not 'little one,' not 'good girl,' not even a cold, clinical 'subject'—lands like a slap.
"Why is it different now?" My voice rises. "You were fine with it yesterday. You had a whole curriculum. A system. You were going to break me down and rebuild me and?—"
"That was before I understood what Giovanni's actually doing to you."
"He's protecting me."
"He's fracturing." Jino's jaw tightens. "There's something broken in my cousin that I didn't see before. Something that happened to him that he's never—" He stops. Shakes his head.
Terror crawls up my spine.
Not the fun kind. Not the anticipatory dread of waiting for Master's crop.
Real fear.
"What are you talking about?"
"I don't know if I can do this." His gaze locks on mine. "I don't know if breaking you down is the right move when Giovanni's already?—"
He stops again.
And this time, the silence stretches.