She didn't scream. That was the first thing that pleased him. So many girls, when the shadows shift, scream before they're even touched. But not her. She didn't scream. She sensed him. Felt the heat of his presence. The weight of him pressed invisibly into her life. But she never ran. Not yet.
He liked that.
She was being broken in gently, exactly how he wanted. Not with ropes or blades. With silence. With vanished items. With photos that shouldn't exist. With water on her floor that had no source. She would come undone slowly. Like lace unraveling under wet fingers. She would learn to accept fear as love. He would be the only thing that made sense by the time she saw his face.
She was almost ready.
And his daughter? She was nearly perfect.
He watched from the hallway, arms folded as Lelo sat upright on the velvet bench, posture stiff, eyes narrowed in fierce focus. The maid, Ruth, stood in front of her holding a teacup.
"Now try again, Miss. More sweetness. Less murder."
Lelo blinked, lifted the cup with both hands, and squeaked out, "Would you like some tea, mother?"
Ruth sighed. "You still sound like you're threatening her."
Lelo frowned. "I'm not. I meant it."
"Try again," said Ruth.
Lelo turned, smiled unnaturally wide, and in a voice that could terrify angels, asked, "Tea, mother? Please?"
The butler behind them chuckled.
The father stepped into the room. "Enough."
Lelo whipped around. "She won't like me if I'm fake."
"She will like you," he said simply. "Because you're part of me. And I will teach her to love what belongs to me."
"She already loves people," Lelo said. "There's this girl with bad eyeliner she keeps laughing with. I hate her."
"She won't matter."
"But I don't want to be second. Not even to you."
He didn't respond. Just stared at her. And slowly, Lelo looked down, guilt washing over her like cold milk.
"She belongs to both of us," he said. "But only if she believes it's her choice."
"And if she never does?"
"She will."
Lelo bit her lip. "What if she still misses her home?"
He smiled, faint and bone-deep.
"Then we make sure she forgets what home ever felt like."
Later that evening, Lelo practiced again. This time she wore pink socks and braided her hair. Ruth made her rehearse knocking on imaginary doors and pretending to cry about broken dolls.
"I don't like dolls," Lelo whispered.
"You like the outcome," Ruth said.
By the time the sun set, she had drawn four new pictures of Serene, rewritten her fake "bedtime story," and practiced blinking with just enough tears in her eyes to look motherless.
When the lights went out, she whispered into the dark, "I'm going to be the best daughter in the world."
From the hall, her father whispered back, "And I'll be the only man she'll ever need."
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