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Gillian

T he car is silent, but my ears ring like they always do before something goes wrong.

No message this time. No handler. Just the same unmarked car outside my building, headlights off, engine idling like it’s bored. I don’t ask where we’re going.

I already know.

Ellis’s house waits like a confession. The air shifts before I even step inside, as if it knows. As if it’s already decided who I’ll be tonight.

The front door is open.

He’s not waiting.

I step inside anyway.

There’s no music tonight. No soft piano, no curated mood. Just the hum of hidden systems and the whisper of my own breath. The air smells like bleach and something colder underneath—his cologne, the one he only wears when he’s sharpening something.

I follow the hallway because that’s what I do. Because he doesn’t have to summon me anymore.

The bedroom door is ajar. That’s new.

He’s inside. Sitting. Not standing. Not pacing.

Waiting.

“You know what to do,” he says.

But I don’t.

I have the eerie sense that this is all familiar, that I’ve been here, and done this before. But the details are not clear.

The resets make sure of that.

Ellis lets out a long heavy sigh, like he’s exasperated with my incompetence. He doesn’t look up. In fact, he doesn’t look at me at all. “Undress.”

I don’t move right away. Not because I’m resisting. Because I’m calculating. My journals tell me he only calls me when something doesn’t go his way. I’ve read this all before. Which is how I know, someone —whoever she is—must’ve gone off-script again.

Another annoyed sigh floats across the room.

I remove my clothes. Slow. Clinical. No seduction left in it.

He stands only when I’m naked. Crosses the room like a man inspecting inventory.

His eyes trail over me with the same detachment he reserves for contracts and quarterly reports. A flick of interest here. A glance of judgment there. No reaction that wasn’t curated in advance.

“She said no,” he says, mostly to himself. “But I’m not surprised. They always think they’re different at first.”

He circles me like a problem to solve. His fingers skim my ribs, then my hip. There’s no tenderness. Just a cold assessment of damage already done.

“But you,” he says softly, fingers trailing down my spine, “you can’t stay away.”

I flinch at the lie. He feels it.

He leans in, teeth grazing my neck.

“Your mother asked about you again,” he says suddenly.

The words land before I can brace.

“She misses you. She sent that little package—lavender soap, I think. A note in cursive. She worries you’re not eating enough.”

I close my eyes.

“She thinks you’re in Finland, Gillian. Can you imagine?” he says, like it’s almost funny. “I told them you were doing something important.”

He waits. Watches.

“I told her you didn’t have time to call because you were busy doing groundbreaking research that would save lives.”

A pause. Then, quietly:

“She cried.”

I don’t cry.

I bite my cheek until I taste blood, but I don’t cry.

Because that’s what he wants.

He keeps circling. Like a predator toying with the idea of hunger.

“Your nephew turned three last week. Big party. Dinosaurs. Your sister made a little hat for him. Paper crown.”

He leans in.

“He wore it all day. Even to bed.”

My throat clenches. He hasn’t touched me, but I feel stripped open.

He studies me, voice now a scalpel.

“And Kevin,” he says. “You remember Kevin?”

He doesn’t wait for confirmation.

“He’s dating someone new now. She’s younger. Blonder. Less difficult.”

I flinch.

Ellis smiles.

“She doesn’t cry when he forgets to text back. Big upgrade.”

Still, he’s not done.

“You know,” he says, “your best friend—what was her name again?”

I freeze.

He grabs my hair and tugs. Hard. “What was her name, Gillian?”

“Devon.”

“That’s right. Devon. ” He releases my ponytail, shoving my head forward. “You wouldn’t believe what’s become of her.”

And that’s when I understand. He’s hitting every nerve. Every buried wire.

He doesn’t want my body tonight.

He wants the last part of me that still thinks it might find a way out of this.

“Lie down,” he says, gesturing toward the floor. “Not the bed. That’s for people.”

I pause. Just long enough for it to register. Not defiance. Just grief.

“Now.”

The rug is soft but cold against my skin. He doesn’t bother with ceremony. Doesn’t remove his clothes. He straddles me like he’s pinning something in place, and when he enters me—it’s not fast or brutal.

It’s slow. Measured. Controlled.

He fucks me like a surgeon making an incision.

Every movement calculated. Every thrust designed to cut something out of me.

“You’re very quiet tonight.” His fingers dig into my hips. “I could be anyone, couldn’t I?”

He watches me the way men watch prey they’ve already wounded. Waiting to see if it’ll try to limp or crawl away.

His rhythm never falters. There’s no pace change, no urgency.

Just pressure.

Unrelenting.

“You still miss him?” he asks, too casually. “Kevin?”

I don’t answer.

He pulls my arms back, forces my spine to arch.

“Your mother?” he whispers. “Think she’d still be proud if she saw you like this?”

I make a sound. Not a sob—just something sharp. Something involuntary.

He leans in. “She’d call it love, wouldn’t she?”

He keeps going.

My legs shake, and I hate them for it.

By the time he finishes, I’ve stopped counting the minutes.

He doesn’t collapse. Doesn’t soften. Just rises.

Like nothing happened at all.

As he zips his pants, he finally says, “Don’t worry. Your replacement, she’ll come around.”

He adjusts his sleeves. “They always do. And if she doesn’t?—”

He turns, looks down disgust etched into his features.

“You’re still here.”

Then he leaves.

I don’t get up right away. My legs feel like jelly. The burn between my thighs is sharp this time, not dull.

But it’s not the ache I remember.

It’s the names.

My mother. My sister. Kevin.

He weaponized them like passwords.

And I don’t know which ones I can keep.

Eventually someone brings a robe. My clothes are folded on the chair. There’s a note on top.

Folded. Neat. Surgical. One line, in his handwriting:

Everyone has a weakness. Yours are just easier to find.

I crumple it in my fist.

And I don’t throw it away.

Because part of me knows—he’s not wrong.

But I’m still here.

And that?

That’s starting to feel like a threat.