The heavy oak door smmed shut, the lock clicking into pce with finality. The plush carpet and mahogany furniture of the mayor’s office, usually symbols of power, now felt like a gilded cage.

  Chairman Rond Voss and Mayor Harold Graves, both red-faced and seething, loomed over Elise Carter and Li Vane. The air was thick with the scent of cigar smoke and fury.

  "Weeks ago," Rond snarled, smming his fist on the desk, "our instruction was clear. Get political donations from Hezri. Yet here we stand—empty-handed—while you parade around opening halls and sports fields like some goddamn phinthropist!"

  Li leaned against the windowsill, arms crossed, her expression one of detached amusement. "I did secure funding. Just not for you."

  The mayor’s face purpled. "You insolent little—! Those properties should have been under the party’s name!"

  Elise, standing rigid beside Li, felt the ground crumbling beneath her. "Rond, Harold—let me expin—"

  "Expin what?" Rond cut her off, his voice dripping with disdain. "That you’ve been outmaneuvered by a child? That you let Hezri py you for a fool?"

  Li smirked. "Or maybe Elise just realized I was the better investment."

  The Sack Letter

  The mayor snatched a pre-signed dismissal form from his desk and thrust it at Li. "You’re done in Public Works. Consider your pathetic wages terminated."

  Li took the paper, gnced at it, and ughed. "Oh no. However will I survive without my peanuts?" She tossed it onto the floor. "Keep it. I quit."

  Elise’s Devastation

  Elise’s breath came in shallow gasps. This wasn’t just a failure—it was career suicide. The party would exile her. The old men would ruin her.

  "You bitch," she hissed at Li. "You set me up."

  Li’s smile was ice. "No, Elise. Hezri did."

  As Li strode toward the door, Rond snapped, "Lock it." A bodyguard twisted the deadbolt.

  The mayor’s voice dropped to a venomous whisper. "Elise… you’ve disappointed us. And you know what happens to disappointments."

  His fingers tugged at his tie. "Undress."

  Behind her, Elise’s muffled sob was drowned out by the sound of fabric tearing.

  Rond’s Rage: "You were supposed to control her! Now she owns half the city’s halls, and we look like fools!"

  Mayor’s Betrayal: "You let a nobody outpy you. Did you think we’d just let that slide?"

  Elise’s Pleas: "I—I didn’t know she’d—"

  The mayor locks the door. "You’ve failed us. Now you’ll remember your pce."

  Elise is forced onto the desk, Rond unbuckling his belt as the mayor tears her blouse.

  Final Humiliation: "This is what happens to useless women."

  ***

  The cold pavement bit into Elise’s bare knees as she slumped against the sidewalk, her designer blouse still torn from the mayor’s rough handling. The city’s neon lights blurred through her tears—four years of pying their game, four years of letting them use her, all for nothing.

  Her penthouse? Locked.

  Her prestigious trade position? Revoked.

  Her dignity? Shattered on the mayor’s desk.

  The bruises on her wrists and thighs throbbed, a cruel reminder of what she’d just endured. She clutched a single briefcase of salvaged documents—all she had left.

  The roar of an engine cut through the night. A crimson Ferrari F8 Spider pulled up beside her, its door swinging open to reveal Li Vane, her face unreadable behind oversized sungsses.

  "Get in," Li said, voice ft.

  Elise didn’t move. "Come to gloat?" she spat, her throat raw.

  Li’s lips tightened. Then, to Elise’s shock—a tear streaked down her cheek.

  "Just get in the damn car, Elise."

  The Ferrari’s interior was silent except for the hum of the engine. Elise stared out the window, her reflection a mess of smeared mascara and swollen lips.

  "Why?" Elise finally whispered. "I protected you. I trusted you."

  Li’s grip on the steering wheel turned white-knuckled. "You think I wanted this?" Her voice cracked. "You think I enjoyed watching them—" She cut herself off, swerving violently into the hospital’s VIP entrance.

  Elise’s breath hitched. "Then why betray me?"

  Li killed the engine, her sungsses hiding nothing now—her eyes were red-raw.

  "Because Hezri doesn’t let you choose sides," she choked out. "He makes you his. And once you are… there’s no going back."

  A beat.

  ***

  The sterile glow of the hospital suite illuminated Elise’s naked form as Dr. Lakyus and Renner worked silently, their skilled hands tending to the darkening bruises that marred her fwless skin. She y motionless on the examination table, her tear-streaked face turned away, too shattered to care that Hezri stood in the shadows, his gaze tracing every curve, every wound.

  Li hovered nearby, her fists clenched, her usual composure shattered.

  "Look at her!" Li’s voice cracked as she whirled on Hezri, her eyes burning with tears. "You used me to break her! Was this your pn all along? To humiliate her, to make her nothing?"

  Hezri didn’t flinch. "No."

  "Then why?" she screamed, gesturing to Elise’s battered body. "What’s the point?"

  Hezri stepped forward, his voice a low, deliberate murmur.

  "To make her mine."

  He moved closer, his shadow falling over Elise’s still form.

  "Elise Carter was never just a pawn," he said, his fingers brushing a stray lock of hair from her forehead. "She was a queen—too proud, too cunning to be bought. So I had to break her crown first."

  Li’s breath hitched. "You… you wanted this?"

  "I wanted her," Hezri corrected, his thumb tracing the edge of a bruise on Elise’s hip. "Not as a toy. Not as a puppet. As a woman who understands power, pain… and the price of both."

  Elise’s eyes finally flickered open, gssy with exhaustion—but something darker flickered beneath. Understanding.

  The sterile hum of medical equipment filled the silence as Hezri delivered his decree with chilling finality.

  "The adjacent suite will be converted into your new quarters," he said, his voice devoid of negotiation. "You will live here—with me. No more politics. No more groveling at the feet of those withered old men."

  Elise y motionless on the examination table, her naked body still bearing the marks of her humiliation—bruised hips, reddened wrists, the ghost of fingers around her throat. Yet, something in her eyes had shifted. The shattered woman from the sidewalk was gone. In her pce smoldered something darker. Hungrier.

  The sterile hum of medical equipment filled the tense silence as Dr. Lakyus snapped off her gloves with clinical precision. "The bruising will fade in two weeks," she stated coolly, her eyes flickering between Hezri and Elise's naked form. "But the psychological trauma requires... specialized treatment."

  Renner handed Elise a silk robe with unsettling tenderness, her doll-like smile never reaching her eyes. "We have just the right medications to help you forget, darling."

  Elise ignored the offered robe, letting her battered body remain exposed as she finally spoke - her voice hoarse but razor-sharp. "You misunderstand, doctor." Her bruised fingers dug into the examination table's edges. "I don't want to forget."

  Hezri's eyebrow arched as Lakyus froze mid-motion, her surgical mask slipping slightly.

  Lakyus: "This isn't one of your political games, Elise. Those men nearly-"

  Elise: (a dark chuckle escaping her swollen lips)

  "Nearly what, Doctor? Nearly broke me?" She pushed herself upright with deliberate slowness, wincing only slightly. "Oh no... they just reminded me how the game is pyed."

  Renner exchanged a gnce with Lakyus, the clipboard in her hands suddenly seeming more like a shield. "You're in shock. Let us at least—"

  Elise swung her legs over the table, bare feet hitting the cold floor with deliberate finality. "Give me the dossier." Her eyes locked onto Hezri. "The real one. Not the child prostitution photos—the files showing where they stashed their offshore accounts."

  A beat of stunned silence.

  Lakyus: (inhaling sharply) "How do you even know about—"Lakyus: (inhaling sharply) "How do you even know about—"

  Hezri stepped forward suddenly, his rge hands cupping Elise's bruised face with surprising gentleness. His thumb brushed over her swollen cheekbone as he leaned in close, his breath warm against her ear.

  "No vengeance," he murmured, his voice a velvet command. "Not yet."

  Elise stiffened, her fingers tightening around the tablet. "You expect me to just—"

  His other hand slid down, palm pressing possessively over her bare chest, right above her pounding heart. "I expect you to heal. To rest." His lips ghosted along her temple. "To let me take care of you... properly."

  The implication hung thick in the air—his definition of care involved silk sheets, slow kisses, and the systematic rewriting of her pain into pleasure.

  Lakyus cleared her throat, adjusting her mask. "Medically speaking, sexual activity would aggravate her—"

  Lakyus' medical objection hung in the air as Hezri's hands stilled against Elise's bruised skin. The heart monitor's steady beep marked the heavy silence before Renner unexpectedly pced a calming hand on Lakyus' shoulder.

  "Some wounds," Renner murmured, her usually cheerful voice uncharacteristically solemn, "require unorthodox healing."

  Elise's breath hitched as Hezri's touch transformed from clinical to worshipful, his fingers tracing unharmed patches of skin between her bruises with devastating tenderness. Lakyus reluctantly nodded, moving to prepare a pain-relieving salve as Renner dimmed the lights.

  Li, her earlier anger softened to quiet intensity, brought warmed towels scented with vender. "Let us care for you," she whispered, draping one over Elise's shoulders as Hezri lifted her effortlessly.

  The transition from examination table to Hezri's private bed was seamless, their movements choreographed like a dark ballet. Lakyus applied medicinal balm to the worst bruises while Renner arranged pillows with surprising gentleness.

  When Hezri finally joined Elise on the sheets, it was with the controlled grace of a predator turned protector. His kiss, when it came, was a paradox - ciming yet reverent, demanding yet healing. Elise arched into him, not in submission but in fierce colboration, her nails scraping lightly down his back.

  Li watched from the doorway, her earlier tears dried as she observed the transformation - the broken politician becoming something new under Hezri's ministrations. Lakyus monitored Elise's vital signs with clinical detachment, though her fingers tightened slightly around the chart when Elise moaned.

  Renner alone maintained her eerie smile as she pced a gss of water nearby. "The best medicine," she sang softly before following the others out.

  As the door clicked shut, Hezri whispered against Elise's skin: "This isn't forgiveness. This is armor." The heart monitor's rhythm sped up as their bodies moved together - not in violence, but in the creation of a dangerous new alliance forged from pain and pleasure alike.