Page 44 of Red Dreams

“Good boy,” Cassie purrs.

I watch how she positions herself, with one hand still gripping the hair at the back of his head and the other pressed between his shoulder blades.

Not the most efficient way to control someone. Morelli taught her strength when he should have taught her precision. Ethan stumbles but catches himself on the table's edge. Blood drips from his split lip onto the polished wood as Cassie forces him into the chair where Layla was forced to sit during our “romantic dinner.”

“Hands on the table where Daddy can see them,” she orders Ethan.

I continue to observe her technique with the Scythe’s clinical detachment. Every move betrays Morelli's influence: all brutality and no finesse.

The way Cassie digs her nails into Ethan's wrist as she forces his hand flat against the wood, how she positions herself to loom over him rather than maintain proper supervision.

Cassie's fingers freeze over Ethan's hand. She tilts her head. “What was that, Daddy?”

“The angle's wrong,” I explain, studying her grip with the same cold calculation I used on targets. “Morelli taught you to maximize pain. But pain without purpose is just ... messy.”

Her eyes light up with manic curiosity. “And you'd know all about purpose, wouldn't you?” She shifts her grip, mimicking my tone. “Tell me then, what would you have taught your little girl?”

Layla's breath catches as she realizes what I'm doing—meeting Cassie's madness not as a father trying to save his daughter, but as someone who understands the artistry of breaking people.

“The wrist first,” I say softly. “Control comes from immobilization.”

Ethan raises his head, his good eye meeting mine, the betrayal in it cutting deeper than I expected. All that time we spent working together to find Layla, and now I'm teaching my psychotic daughter how to torture him properly.

Layla tips her head back, her lips parting.

“Kaden, don't.”

Her tone carries more disappointment than fear.

The weight of their judgment should crush me. Instead, it crystallizes everything. They don't understand. To save them both, I need to become what I've always been. What made me the Scythe. What kept me alive while hunting for my daughter all those years.

“The wrist is boring,” Cassie says, forcing Ethan's right hand flat against the polished wood.

Sweat beads on his forehead when he turns his attention back to her. His chest spasms with shallow breaths.

“I’ll do what you want,” he says, trying to reason with Cassie. “I’ll help you, like you asked. I’ll fix the AI, just don’t—Ineedmy fingers.”

Layla gasps at the same time I stiffen. The stolen AI, the Oracle, has never been at the top of my priorities, but it was Layla’s. She tried so hard to destroy it before it got into Morelli’s hands. Instead, Morelli is dead and the Oracle’s remnants are now in Cassie’s hands, my daughter turned Mafia princess.

“Funny how quick you are to help now,” Cassie says to Ethan, her eyes bright with that fractured intelligence that makes her dangerous. “When I asked you before—so nicely—you said the code was too corrupt after Layla tinkered with it. That Oracle couldn't be salvaged.” She traces the top of Ethan's finger almost tenderly. “Your code was clever,” Cassie says, reaching Ethan’s wrist and pressing into the tender underside. He presses his lips together, pushing fresh blood out of the cuts. “Routing through dead servers, mimicking old security protocols. But you got sloppy when you found the surveillance feeds. Too eager to help Daddy and his little kitten.” She tilts her head. “All I had to do was follow your digital footprints right to that color-vomit basement. Though I have to admit”—Cassie’s eyes glitter with that fractured light—”watching you try to fight back was almost cute. Like a mouse wiggling around in a trap.”

Ethan tries to steady his breathing as blood drips down his chin. The betrayal in his eye when he looks at me deepens.

Cassie’s lips curve. “So keep your noble refusal, Ethan. You're more useful as a lesson now.”

Ethan pales. “Miss Black,please…”

My arms tighten around Layla, no longer just to keep her safe but to show Cassie exactly what I'm capable of when someone threatens what's mine. Time to let my daughter see that Morelli's education was remedial compared to what her real father could have taught her.

“The problem with Papa Morelli,” I cut in just as Cassie is poised to wrench Ethan’s index finger backward, “was that he relied too heavily on physical pain. Amateur stuff, really.Breaking fingers?” I let out a dark laugh. “I would have taught you how to break minds first. Bodies are just collateral damage.”

Layla tries to rip out of my hold, but I continue, my eyes locked on my daughter while dropping my arms from around Layla. “Want me to show you how it's done? How to really make someone suffer without leaving a single mark?”

The perfect predator's smile spreads across my face as I add, “After all, you got your talent for psychological warfare from somewhere. And it wasn't Morelli.”

“You think you know better?” Cassie asks me, amused.

Challenge lights her eyes. That same manic gleam I've seen reflected back at me in the mirror after I finish my kills.

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