The word "grooming" hit me like a punch to the solar plexus, dredging up memories I'd spent years burying. Milan. The suite at the Bulgari Hotel. Prometheus teaching me how to taste champagne properly before... before...
"I see the information control tactics too," Vincent continued. "The special language. 'Assets,' 'ferrymen,' 'pennies.' Creates an insider identity. The physical isolation in underground facilities. The manufactured scarcity of those copper pennies to ensure compliance. The ritualistic exchanges. Even the Greek mythology themes are deliberate, casting Prometheus as a godlike figure bringing enlightenment. I've deprogrammed people from organizations with identical structures."
"Fuck you," I snapped, heat rising under my skin. My pulse roared in my ears as sweat beaded cold along my spine. The room tilted slightly, the lights suddenly too bright, too harsh. I tasted champagne at the back of my throat, phantom hands on my skin. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I?" He stepped closer. "Your hands trembled when you mentioned his name. Your pupils dilated. Your breathing changed. Classic trauma response to an abuser."
I slammed him against the wall before I realized I'd moved, forearm pressed against his throat, bodies flush from chest to thigh. "Stop. Analyzing. Me."
Vincent didn't struggle. Didn't even have the decency to look afraid. His pulse hammered against my arm, but his eyes remained steady on mine. For a split second, his body relaxed against mine, almost yielding, before he caught himself. "Is this how Prometheus taught you to handle challenges to your worldview? With violence?"
I jerked back as if burned, releasing him instantly. "Shit. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."
"It's okay," he said softly, rubbing his throat. "I pushed intentionally. Needed to test a theory."
"What theory?"
"That your conditioning has cracks in it. Deep ones." Vincent straightened from the wall, his therapist mask sliding back into place. "Whatever Prometheus did to create you, it's breaking down. That's why you couldn't kill me, isn't it? The programming failed."
My knees suddenly went weak. I sank onto a nearby chair, the truth of his words settling cold and heavy in my stomach. "You don't understand what you're messing with."
"Then help me understand," he said, kneeling before me soour eyes were level.
I stared at him, at this man who'd somehow managed to undo decades of conditioning in three weeks of surveillance and one therapy session. Who'd seen through the layers of protective sarcasm to the broken thing underneath.
A sudden memory flashed. Prometheus in Milan, champagne glasses clinking. His voice, silky and persuasive: "You wanted this, Luka. Your body doesn't lie."
My hands clenched involuntarily, nails digging crescents into my palms. My mouth flooded with saliva, body preparing to vomit even as my mind built walls around the memory. For a moment, I wasn't in the Acropolis anymore, but back in that hotel room, sheets tangled around my legs, unable to coordinate my limbs, unable to say no.
"Your nose needs setting," Vincent said, changing topics so abruptly I blinked. "Let me fix it."
Before I could respond, his hands were on my face, touch precise yet somehow intimate. He examined the break, fingers gentle against swollen tissue.
"This will hurt," he warned, thumbs positioning on either side of my nose.
"I've had worse," I started to say, but he moved before I finished, snapping cartilage back into place with a practiced motion.
Pain exploded white-hot behind my eyes, drawing a strangled curse from my lips. When my vision cleared, Vincent was still there, hands cupping my face, eyes searching mine.
"Better?" he asked, thumbs brushing along my cheekbones in a gesture that didn't seem entirely medical.
Our faces were inches apart, his breath warm against my lips. Something electric crackled between us, dangerous and magnetic. I could sense his pulse racing beneath my fingers, which had somehow found their way to his wrists.
Vincent's gaze dropped to my mouth, lingering there before he dragged it back up. The professional mask slipped for a moment, revealing something hungry and primal lurking beneath.
"You've done that before," I said roughly.
"Set broken noses? Yes." A hint of a smile played at his lips. "In grad school, I dated a semi-pro boxer. Saw plenty of facial trauma."
"Full of surprises, aren't you, Dr. Matthews?"
"You have no idea," he murmured.
The moment stretched, taut with possibility. All I had to do was lean forward an inch...
My phone buzzed violently in my pocket, shattering the moment. Vincent pulled back as I fished out the device.
Unknown number. I answered cautiously. "Yeah?"
