The morning after their fervent reunion, the bakery stood like a theater after a tragedy—set, still, and echoing with the memory of heat. Though the air still clung to scorched sugar and stale despair, it buzzed now with the fragile breath of routine—a silence bracing itself to be broken.
A voice, crisp and honeyed with judgment, cut through the stillness.
"Good morning, Eve. How's the settling in? I heard about your father. A loss, yes… but at least he left the bakery in capable hands."
Mrs. Garcia. A fixture of the neighborhood. Drenched in lavender and sharp-eyed tradition.
Eve *offered a smile, thin and sweet like over-steeped tea*. "Trying to keep things warm."
The old woman's gaze flicked toward the stairs—right as Micah descended, laptop cradled like a shield.
"Micah," she purred, "still Eve's shadow, I see. Some things never change."
Micah gave a polite nod, almost invisible. "Morning. How's Tom?"
"Still breathing," she replied, lips twitching. Her *stare, clinical and hawk-like, hovered over them*—searching for something to confirm the whispers already blooming behind closed curtains.
Eve stepped forward, offering a paper bag. "Here. Croissants, brioche. The usual indulgences."
The bag exchanged hands like a bribe in a holy place. Mrs. Garcia sniffed approvingly, then offered a smile *lined in quiet threat*. "Lovely. Just like your father's."
A final glance—sharp, measuring—then she left, trailing lavender and unanswered questions behind her.
The chimes above the door fell silent. Eve's smile evaporated.
---
Upstairs, the bedroom smelled faintly of sugar and sweat. Micah slept on his side, half-naked, limbs tangled like a marionette abandoned mid-performance. His breath came in slow, uneven pulls, like a man resting in someone else's bed.
Eve sat beside him on the floor, cross-legged, a cigarette unlit between her fingers. A habit without fire, inherited like a scar. Her fingers twitched slightly—ghost memory of her father's belt, his shouting, the taste of blood mixing with flour.
But Micah wasn't a ghost.
*He was hers. Chosen. Claimed. Carved.*
She studied the bruise blooming high on his collarbone—her signature. Not love. Not a hickey. A *mark. Proof. Ownership.* The silent echo of a kiss that had made him hers again.
Every time she touched him, she wasn't loving him.
*She was rewriting him.*
Filling the cracks left by a childhood of cold contempt and weaponized laughter. Not with comfort—he'd never trust softness.
Micah didn't want sanctuary.
*Micah needed a cage.*
And Eve was more than willing to be that cage.
---
Her thoughts came purring, indulgent and cruel:
You were easy, Micah. So bendable. I kissed you at ten and you nearly cried. I told you I loved you, then pulled away when you believed it. You only ever flinched from gentleness, never from pain. Love and hurt—woven together like sugar and flame.
And you've never once tried to untangle them.
She smiled, slow and full of hunger. Love wasn't petals or promises.
*Love was leashes.*
It was the silence after her words.
It was the tremble beneath her touch—
and knowing he wasn't afraid of her.
He was afraid of a world without her.
Micah stirred, mumbling something.
A name. Her name. Or someone else's?
She slapped him—not hard. Just enough to break the fog.
"Don't dream without permission," she whispered, her voice like *honey spilled on broken glass.*
His eyes blinked open, slow and dazed. "Eve?"
Her lips brushed his ear. "Who else?"
He said nothing.
He never did.
And in that silence, she didn't feel power.
*She felt possession.*
The kind no court or cage could break.
He stayed.
He stayed through screaming, through ruin, through everything she carved into him like an artist with a trembling chisel.
Maybe because he had nowhere else to go.
But maybe—just maybe—it was because he wanted to.
And that was enough.
---
That night, her ownership settled into a silent, inescapable hold..
She curled around his back, her arm draped across his chest, his heartbeat tapping against her wrist like a metronome she could control.
She whispered, low and venom-sweet:
"You're the only thing I've ever baked right.
And I'll burn the world before I let anyone else take a bite."