Lisette’s POV
I sit in my car outside the campus library, engine idling quietly in the growing darkness, watching Sophie Hale approach through the autumn twilight like a lamb walking toward slaughter.
She looks exactly as I expected—tired, troubled, carrying the weight of Adrian's child like a burden she can't escape. Just like I had once carried the weight of loving a man incapable of returning that love.
The irony isn't lost on me. Here she is, pregnant with his baby, and he's already begun the process of discarding her just like he discarded me. Some patterns are so deeply ingrained they become inevitable.
My fingers tighten on the chloroform-soaked rag in my lap, the chemical scent sharp and medicinal in the confined space of my car.
The smell reminds me of the hospital where I'd spent those weeks after Adrian abandoned me, where doctors had talked about trauma and recovery while I'd planned exactly this moment.
She has to go, I tell myself, watching Sophie check her phone and look around uncertainly. As long as she's alive, Adrian will never see me. Never come back to what we had.
Cassian would be furious about this betrayal of our agreement. We'd discussed this scenario extensively—he'd made me promise to leave Sophie out of our revenge against Adrian, to focus solely on destroying the man who'd stolen both our futures.
But Cassian doesn't understand. He doesn't know what it feels like to love someone so completely that their absence becomes physical pain, a constant ache in your chest that never fades.
He doesn't know what it's like to wake up every morning for five years and remember that the person who owns your soul has decided you're worthless.
Sophie represents everything I had lost, everything I could never reclaim while the girl continued to breathe. As long as she exists, Adrian will be obsessed with her instead of remembering what we'd built together.
I watch her hesitate at the library entrance, probably wondering why I'd chosen such a public location for our conversation. The poor little lamb has no idea that sometimes the most dangerous predators hide in plain sight.
"Sophie?" I call out softly, rolling down my window and gesturing for her to approach. "Over here."
She approaches my car with the wary curiosity of someone who knows they're walking into danger but can't quite identify the source. Her protective instincts are stronger now—pregnancy does that to women, makes them more careful, more suspicious.
Not careful enough, unfortunately.
"Professor Vaughn…" She leans down when I gesture through the open window, her face creased with confusion. "I thought we were meeting inside the library—"
The rag covers her nose and mouth before she can finish the sentence.
Her struggles are brief and futile—exactly what I'd expected from someone with no training in self-defense, someone who'd never learned that the world is full of people who smile while they destroy you.
Her eyes go wide with panic and understanding, but the chloroform works quickly.
Within seconds, she goes limp against my car door.
I take a moment to appreciate the poetry of it—Sophie Hale, unconscious and helpless, finally experiencing what it feels like to have control stripped away by someone who claims to care about your wellbeing.
Welcome to my world, darling.
***
Hours later, Sophie wakes on the university's rooftop, wrists bound with professional precision behind her back, the evening wind cutting through her thin sweater with cruel efficiency.
The campus spreads out below us like a miniature world, completely oblivious to the drama unfolding above.
I sit across from her in a chair I'd brought up earlier, legs crossed with perfect composure despite the insanity of our location. Everything about this moment has been planned down to the smallest detail.
"You're awake. Good." I light a cigarette with steady hands, taking satisfaction in the way Sophie's eyes dart around, cataloging her surroundings and the impossibility of escape. "We have things to discuss."
"Professor Vaughn," Sophie's voice is hoarse from the chloroform, tinged with the kind of terror that comes from realizing you're completely at someone else's mercy. "What is this? What do you want?"
"He was mine first," I say simply, taking a long drag and letting the smoke drift between us like a peace offering. "For two years, Adrian belonged to me completely. Body, mind, soul—everything. Then he decided I was disposable."
Sophie tugs against her restraints with desperate energy, the rope I'd used cutting into her wrists as she tests the bonds I'd tied with meticulous care. "This is insane. Professor Vaughn, please, just let me go. We can talk about this like adults."
"Adults?"
I laugh, the sound sharp and brittle in the cold air.
"Do you know what it's like to love someone who sees you as an experimental phase? To give everything, your submission, your devotion, your complete surrender, and be discarded like a broken toy when he grows bored?"
I lean forward, studying her face with clinical interest.
"You will, soon enough. Adrian doesn't love you, Sophie. He's fascinated by you, obsessed perhaps, captivated by the novelty of corrupting his sweet little student. But love? He's constitutionally incapable of it."
"Then why are you doing this?" Sophie's voice cracks with desperation. "If he can't love anyone, why does it matter if I'm here or not?"
I take another drag, considering the question with the academic thoroughness it deserves.
"Because even his obsession with you is more than he ever gave me after our arrangement ended. And I simply can't live in a world where he chooses you over the woman who made him what he is."
Sophie's eyes dart toward the rooftop edge, only a few feet away from where she sits bound and helpless.
Understanding floods her face—the location we're in, the careful staging, the rope around her wrists that will leave marks consistent with suicide preparation.
"A tragic accident."
I continue conversationally, as if we're discussing the weather instead of her imminent death.
"Pregnant student, overwhelmed by public scandal and a lover who abandoned her, takes her own life from the university rooftop. Adrian will blame himself, of course. Guilt makes men so much more... pliable."
"You're sick," Sophie whispers, but there's no real fight left in her voice. She's beginning to understand that this isn't a negotiation or a threat—it's an execution.
"I'm practical," I correct gently. "Adrian and I had something beautiful before you came along. Something pure and complex and perfectly suited to both our needs. You've turned him into something desperate and unpredictable, and that simply won't do."
The wind picks up, carrying the scent of autumn leaves and the distant sounds of normal life continuing far below us. Soon, this will all be over, and I can begin the long process of helping Adrian heal from the trauma of losing his little obsession.
Some wounds, after all, bring people closer together.