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FIFTY

BANE

What do you do after the love of your life stomps on your heart and leaves you broken on the floor?

I begged her to stay. I put everything on the line. I fought for her. Told her I loved her. Looked her in the eye and would have sworn I saw it in her eyes, too.

But was she right?

Was she just a story I made up in my head?

Was the real Moira just a body inhabited by my dream woman for half a year before she stepped back out of the Pygmalion version of her I’d shaped in my mind? Far too real to ever be caged by my foolish imagination?

Far too wild.

Far too magnificent to ever truly want me.

She volunteers at the women’s shelter because she loves people. Because she sparkles from the inside out. Whereas I volunteer at the prison to purge my soul. Because it was where I should’ve ended up if my father hadn’t stepped in. Because I am and always will be a privileged little prick. My path always smoothed before me.

No one ever says no to me.

Until her.

And here I am again.

The entitled little shit. Sad boy. All alone.

Like my father, who could buy the whole world, but there’s still not an actual soul in that world that genuinely loves him. Like father, like son.

At the end of things, I’m back at the beginning.

So I do the only thing I can think of because drowning myself in a bottle of whisky is so fucking cliché I can’t even bear to crack open the bottle.

I don’t want to feel numb.

I want to hurt.

I go to the club. And I stomp in with a purpose.

The club is alive.

Not in the way a church is alive—breathing with whispered prayers, the rustle of hymnals, and the gentle clinking of a chalice.

This place pulses. It throbs. It beats like a second heart, its rhythm discordant with the one already hammering in my chest.

The bass rattles the walls.

Bodies move in the dark.

Writhing. Submitting. Taking. Giving.

The scent of it, the weight of it, presses against me like an invitation, and I breathe it in.

I don’t belong here.

Not tonight. Not in this headspace.

But I came anyway. And without my mask. I’m done pretending I’m two people. Consequences be damned.

I scan the room, my pulse a steady, punishing thrum beneath my skin. I know who I’m looking for. A particular person clad head to toe in latex, booted heels tipped in a wicked spike.

Quinn.

She’s easy to spot. In all black, confidence rolls off her as she sits on a throne-like chair with a man kneeling at her feet, his head bowed, his body slack in surrender. She runs a hand through his hair absentmindedly as if he’s a pet. The room seems to orbit around her without her even trying.

I cross the floor in measured steps.

When I reach her, I don’t hesitate. “Mistress Quinn. I’d like to engage your services for the night.”

“Father Blackwood,” she purrs, dismissing the man at her feet with a flick of her wrist. He whines but crawls away.

She looks up at me and takes her time raking her gaze over my frame. Reading me.

“You look like hell, Father.”

I roll my shoulders, feeling the tension coil tighter. “I need your services.”

Quinn leans back in her chair, crossing her legs, the movement lazy. Unbothered. “Oh?”

“I need you to hurt me.”

She stills. Not a dramatic pause, not a tease—just pure, assessing silence. Then, slowly, she exhales, setting her drink down on the table beside her.

“You’re not my usual clientele.”

“I don’t care.” My voice is raw, scraping against something inside me that feels close to breaking. “Just do it.”

She studies me, taking her time, eyes slicing through my composure like a scalpel. She sees too much. She always has.

“This about her ?”

My teeth clench, and my pulse roars.

“Questions aren’t part of the bargain.” My voice is low with warning.

Quinn smirks, tilting her head like she’s debating. “Oh, I think they are.” She stands, stepping closer, the scent of expensive perfume curling around me. “Because you, Father , are not a man who gives up control easily. And yet, here you are.”

I don’t flinch. “Are you going to help me or not?”

She lifts a hand, trailing one perfect, red-tipped nail down my chest. Slow, deliberate.

“I could break you,” she murmurs, a whisper of a promise.

I meet her gaze, unflinching. “That’s the point.”

She lets that hang between us. The music pounds, distant, like it belongs to another world—one where I haven’t lost everything. One where Moira still calls me hers.

Then Quinn laughs. A quiet, knowing sound. She steps back, shaking her head.

“No.”

The word slams into me harder than any whip ever could. It lodges deep, where the wounds are still open and bleeding. My body locks up.

“You’re refusing?” My voice is even, but barely. “Why?”

She shrugs. “I don’t play with men looking to run from their pain.”

I exhale through my nose. “That’s not what this is. I want the pain.”

She tilts her head, amusement flickering in her eyes. “Oh, really? So tell me, Father . Are you here because you like submission?”

I stay silent.

“Are you here because you want to serve ?”

My jaw tightens.

“Or are you here because you think if I beat the hell out of you, it’ll erase what’s already been done?”

Something in my chest twists violently. “Don’t act like you know me.”

“Oh, but I do.” She steps closer again, pressing a single, manicured finger to my sternum. “I know exactly what you are. A man who takes. Who dominates. Who breaks others, piece by piece, until they’re nothing but offerings at his altar.”

My teeth clench. I don’t respond.

She leans in, lips just brushing my ear.

“And now? You want someone to break you ?”

The breath I take is sharp, burning its way down.

“I need to feel something else,” I grind out. “I need to be punished for my sins.”

She pulls back, meeting my gaze again, something knowing in her expression. “No, you want to feel her . You want to replace the pain of losing her with another kind, but you’re not built for that, Father. You don’t bend.”

I clench my fists, every muscle in my body screaming for violence, for anything that isn’t this truth she’s carving into me. “If you won’t do it, I’ll find someone who will.”

Quinn sighs, stepping back. “You could. Plenty of people here would love the chance to put their hands on you.”

She sits again, taking her time crossing her legs and picking up her drink.

“But that’s the thing, isn’t it?” she murmurs. “You don’t want them . You want someone who can actually hurt you .” She takes a slow sip, eyes glinting.

Then, with the smallest tilt of her head, she gives the order.

“Kneel.”

It’s not a request. Not an invitation.

It’s a command.

My body locks up. A muscle in my jaw ticks. I’ve only kneeled before one person in my entire life.

But Quinn just waits, patient, her lips curling slightly. Daring me.

This is what I’m here for, isn’t it?

So I do it. Even though it feels like a betrayal. Because it feels like a betrayal. Slowly. Deliberately. I kneel.

The floor is cold beneath my knees. I feel the weight of the moment pressing on my spine. My hands settle on my thighs, fists clenched, every muscle in my body going tight as steel cables.

Quinn circles me, the click of her heels barely audible over the thrum of bass.

“Look at you,” she muses, her voice smooth as silk and twice as sharp. “So eager to run from your pain, you’d rather crawl to me than face it.”

I grit my teeth. “I don’t run.”

She laughs. It’s not kind. Not cruel. Just knowing.

“Then say it.” She stops in front of me, tilting her head. “Say why you’re really here.”

I exhale, slow and measured. “I told you?—”

A sharp snap of her fingers cuts through the noise. “No. The truth, Bane.”

My chest rises and falls. The music presses against me, a suffocating rhythm. “I need?—”

Another snap. “Not good enough.”

My throat tightens. I won’t give her what she wants. I won’t say it.

But Quinn? She’s a professional. And she’s ruthless.

She crouches down, leveling her gaze with mine, amusement curling at the edges of her lips. “You’re pathetic like this,” she muses, her nails dragging down the side of my face, slow and deliberate. “Look at you, kneeling like a good little submissive, thinking I’ll give you what you want.”

I breathe through my nose, refusing to react.

“Your wife left you.”

Her words are a wrecking ball to my ribs.

I don’t move.

She hums, tapping a manicured nail against my jaw. “Say it.”

I swallow, pulse in my throat. “No.”

Her smirk deepens. “You think pain will fix it? That if I mark you up, break your skin, make you bleed, it’ll drown out the ache in your chest?”

Silence.

She drags that single finger down the center of my chest again, slow, like she’s peeling me open. “You don’t want pain, Bane,” she whispers, eyes locked on mine. “You want absolution. You want someone to tell you this isn’t your fault. That she was always going to leave, no matter what you did.”

I force my breath to stay steady.

“But you don’t get that,” Quinn continues, her voice almost gentle now, almost kind. “No one’s coming to save you from this.” She leans in close, lips brushing my ear. “And you know it .”

My hands tremble. I curl my fingers tighter, nails biting into my palms.

“Say it.”

I shake my head.

She sighs, almost pitying. “What are you afraid of? That saying it out loud will make it real?”

I don’t answer.

She crouches again, so close I can feel the heat of her body, the sharp scent of her perfume. “It’s already real. She’s gone. She left you. She walked away, and you let her.”

Something inside me snaps. My hands slam down on my thighs, my breath rushing out like I’ve been punched in the gut.

Quinn smiles, slow, triumphant. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

My pulse roars in my ears.

“You don’t need my hand on you,” she continues, her voice softer now. Deadlier. “You need to sit in this pain. You need to feel it. Acknowledge it. Stop trying to outrun it.”

She paces around me, taking her time, savoring it. “That’s why she left, isn’t it? You tried to make her something she wasn’t. And when she finally had enough, when she walked, you came here—hoping I’d erase her from your skin.”

I squeeze my eyes shut.

“But she’s still there, isn’t she?” Quinn crouches down in front of me again, lifting my chin with two fingers. “Every inch of you is still hers.”

I grind my teeth. “You’re enjoying this.”

“Immensely,” she purrs. “Because I see you, Bane. And I know this won’t be the last time.”

I rip my face away from her grip, my entire body tight with restraint.

She leans in, almost gently. “You will sit with this pain. You will feel every second of it. The weight of her absence. The finality of it.” She smiles like she’s handing me my death sentence. “And when you’ve had enough of pretending, when you’re ready to actually face it, maybe then— maybe —you’ll finally understand why she left.”

I breathe hard through my nose, my body shaking with something violent and raw.

“Until then?” Quinn rises to her full height, looking down at me like I’m already broken.

“You’ll be back,” she says simply. “Again and again. Because you don’t want release. You want punishment.” She leans in one last time just to whisper, “But your true punishment is facing the pain inside you.”

Then she turns and walks away, leaving me on my knees, drowning in everything I refuse to say.