Dominance Evolution System: Sweat, Sex, and Streetball

Halloway remained frozen for a moment, his gaze moving from Victoria to his bodyguards who had stayed back near the entrance, before slowly standing up, an uncontrolled stiffness hardening every one of his movements.

"Madame Graves," he said, barely bowing, his voice tight.

"Sit back down," Victoria said, a slight satisfied smile appearing on her lips.

He sat, immediately plunging his hand into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulling out a crumpled envelope that he threw onto the table between them.

"What does this mean?" he spat, his voice trembling with contained rage. "You send me this by EMAIL?"

Victoria lowered her eyes to the envelope without even touching it, deliberately letting the silence stretch a second too long before answering.

"Oh, this? I consider it a true work of art," she finally said, her voice detached, one finger absently tapping the rim of her cup. "I called it ’Senator Halloway on Vacation’."

"Don’t play games with me," he hissed, leaning forward, knuckles against the edge of the table. "You know perfectly well what this is."

"How about you? Do you know?" Victoria said, finally opening the folder in front of her with the laziest gestures possible. "But tell me. What exactly bothers you the most?" She slid a document toward him with a flick of her finger. "The photos of you during your wild sessions? Or would you have preferred the video recordings of your little special discipline sessions that we sent you?"

He went pale instantly, his hand freezing halfway toward the document without daring to touch it.

"Or maybe," she continued, slowly pulling a khaki envelope from a thicker folder, "the purchase contracts?" She drew out a sheet, pretending to scan it. "East Asian or mixed. Height between 160 and 168 centimeters. Bust no smaller than 90. Waist no larger than 60." She looked up at him, one eyebrow raised. "You seem to have rather specific preferences, Senator. Ones that absolutely do not match your wife’s profile, by the way."

"THAT’S ENOUGH!" he exploded, slamming the flat of his hand on the table, making the cups jump, one of them nearly tipping over.

Around them, no one reacted. Not a flinch, not a curious glance turned away from their own cup.

"You’re getting angry for the wrong reason," Victoria said, unperturbed, calmly closing the folder. "You should rather blame yourself if I had to send you that by email. I gave you a deadline in my last message and there was a read confirmation, so I know you saw it. But you chose silence."

He stayed silent for a moment, breathing hard, his fingers tightening and loosening on his knees, clearly trying to regain control of himself.

"Do you realize the consequences," he finally said, his voice lower but still vibrating with anger, "if someone intercepts this one way or another—"

"The consequences will be for you," Victoria cut in, her voice hardening for the first time. "Not for me. Never forget that. From now on, respect your deadlines."

"What deadline?" he spat, changing angles, a finger pointed at her. "What deadline did you give me to answer? One hour?! Do you realize that?!" He half-rose from his chair, incredulous, his voice rising an octave. "Are you serious? One hour to digest something like that and answer you properly, while I was in the middle of a session at the Senate?"

"And yet," Victoria said, an ironic smile slowly stretching across her lips, "here you are. Sitting in front of me. Which actually proves that when you really want to, you can."

He stayed silent, jaw locked, visibly searching for a reply that never came.

"Do you want to know what was waiting for you," she continued, tilting her head slightly, "if you had also missed this appointment?"

He didn’t answer, something nervous crossing his gaze.

"Flyers," she said. "Distributed in the streets around your villa. Directly into your neighbors’ mailboxes." She let a cold smile stretch across her lips. "I already have the mock-ups ready, actually. Nice work. Glossy paper, good image resolution. You can say you had a close call."

Halloway’s face lost even more color, his hand instinctively moving toward his own shirt collar, as if it had suddenly become too tight.

"You’re a dangerous lunatic," he murmured.

"Maybe," Victoria said, crossing her legs. "But you’re the one sitting across from a dangerous lunatic, trying to negotiate instead of simply obeying."

"And if I file a complaint," he said, recovering a little of his usual confidence, straightening in his chair. "For harassment. Threats. I have the means to sink you before you even—"

"File the complaint," Victoria said, a smile slowly widening on her face, almost delighted by the suggestion. "Sincerely, do it. That will give me a perfectly legal reason to make my entire file public in response."

He fell silent, his mouth opening then closing without a single word coming out, his shoulders sagging almost imperceptibly.

"You see," Victoria continued, "that’s been your problem since the beginning of this conversation. You keep acting like you still have a card to play." She leaned forward slightly. "We’re not negotiating, Senator. I’m simply informing you of the next events."

"You have no right," he finally said, his voice trembling, desperately searching for one last angle of attack, one last surge of pride. "You’re just a... a... fucking PIECE OF SHIT!!!"

He stood up suddenly, face red, his fist rising in an uncontrolled gesture... but he stopped dead, mid-air.

A massive hand had closed around his wrist before he could finish the movement. He turned, confused, and his face lost what little color he had left.

Standing behind him was a waiter built like a refrigerator, a giant of about two meters of pure muscle, his face perfectly calm, almost expressionless, his firm grip completely immobilizing Halloway’s arm in the air.

"Sit down," the man said.

Halloway let himself fall back onto his chair, short of breath, his gaze frantically scanning the room for the first time, really, since he had entered.

"This place," Victoria said, "belongs to me. As of recently. The previous owner was also involved in the little trafficking that interests you so much. He chose the difficult way to settle the problem. So now this place belongs to me. And everyone who works here is at my service."

Halloway felt his blood freeze, his gaze slowly moving from one face to another — the waiter behind the counter, the woman at the neighboring table, the man near the window.

No one was drinking. No one was eating. The customers at the neighboring tables were staring at their empty cups without touching them, the waiters remained motionless near the counters, all eyes discreetly turned toward their table.

He had only just realized that Victoria hadn’t chosen this place for the safety of being in public. It was her territory, and he was in her trap, surrounded by her demons.

His mind began to spiral, frantically searching for an exit that didn’t exist. He thought of the entrance door, too far, two waiters posted right in front of it. He thought of his phone in his pocket, but what number could he call, what help could possibly arrive in time in a place that now belonged only to her? His bodyguards were only two. Around them, dozens of people.

He was simply finished.

Images started flashing before his eyes: his five-year-old daughter laughing on his shoulders one Sunday morning in the garden. His wife, young, on their wedding day, that smile she had when she said yes. His own father, proud, the day of his election to the Senate, a firm hand on his shoulder. Twenty years of a career built stone by stone, every compromise justified, every little arrangement excused in the name of a greater good he could no longer even really remember.

All of it was going to collapse. Here. Now. In a café he hadn’t even known existed the day before.

His lips began to move without him really realizing it, an almost inaudible murmur escaping him, his hands joining under the table without him having consciously decided to do so — a prayer, the first in years, addressed to a god he hadn’t really believed in for a long time, but which he was now clinging to like a drowning man to a rotten plank.

Please. Get me out of here. Please.

Victoria noticed the movement of his lips, the barely perceptible tremor of his hands under the table, and a smile stretched across her own lips.

"Pray all you want," she said, her voice soft, almost compassionate in its coldness. "But your little prayer to get out of this will never weigh much against the thousands of other prayers asking for men like you to burn in hell."

Halloway collapsed completely onto his chair, tears suddenly rising to his eyes, unable to hold them back. His hand trembled as it came to rest on the table, searching for a support that didn’t exist.

"Please," he murmured, his voice broken. "I’ll give you everything you want. Everything. Just... don’t do this."

Victoria observed him for a long moment, a cold contempt slowly hardening her features.

"You know what disgusts me the most about you," she finally said, her voice almost soft, which only made it more terrifying. "It’s not even that you paid for it. It’s that you never, not for a single second, considered those women as human beings. Just objects to rent, to use, to throw away. And today you have the madness to ask for mercy?"

"I—"

"Quiet," she cut in without raising her voice. "You prayed to God, not to me, because God is merciful. Not me. I will not offer you the chance of an escape, so consider this a way of having a gentle death."

He fell silent, trembling, eyes lowered toward his own hands, the ones he had just joined in prayer a few moments earlier.

"You said you would give me everything," Victoria said, a satisfied smile appearing on her face. "Perfect. That’s exactly what I want."

"I— yes," Halloway stammered. "Everything. I’ll give you everything."

"Good," she said, leaning very slightly forward. "Because, by the way, we have been recording since the beginning of this conversation. You just admitted your crimes, Senator."

Halloway’s face instantly drained of all color.

"You... But why are you doing all this?! What have I done to you???"

"I’m doing it because I can," Victoria repeated, unperturbed. "So here are my conditions, for a gentle death."

She leaned in a little more, her eyes locked on his, without the slightest trace of compassion.

"Forget the Upperworld. You will now live in the Spires, under the constant surveillance of my agents. Twenty-four hours a day. To make sure you don’t get the brilliant idea of putting a rope around your neck to escape all this."

Halloway stayed silent, trembling, unable to find a single objection.

"And you will do," she continued, "absolutely everything I ask of you. To the second."

He lowered his head, defeated, a silent sob shaking his shoulders.

"Alright," he finally murmured. "Alright."

Victoria crossed her arms, a cold, satisfied smile slowly stretching across her face, letting the silence settle back over the table between them, broken only by the light clink of a cup somewhere in the perfectly orchestrated calm of the room.

In the back room, sheltered from view, the sound of the cup came from a small, cramped office that had been turned into an observation post for the occasion. Nash was sitting in front of a screen broadcasting the live feed from the hidden cameras in the main room. A young woman stood next to him, and a young man in a simple but neat suit was seated a little farther away.

"It’s done," Nash said, watching Halloway completely collapse on the screen.

The young woman, arms crossed, the new manager of the café, slowly nodded, her eyes never leaving the screen.

"We should start preparing our rise toward the Upperworld," she said. "Now that we have a senator in our pocket, right?"

"Not yet," Nash said, shaking his head slightly. "Everything still has to unfold down here for now." He turned toward her, his gaze softening. "But rest assured. Now that this man is in our hands, your sister is out of danger. We can force him to bring her back here. The nightmare is over."

She let out a trembling breath, something visibly loosening in her shoulders, before nodding again, more firmly this time.

The young man sitting behind them stood up, adjusting his jacket, and approached the screen in turn.

"Mr. Blaze is right," he said. "We have all the weapons to bring down the gangrene of this world. But facing us," he looked at the screen, "it isn’t a snake. It’s a hydra."

The manager frowned, turning toward him.

"If we move too hastily," he continued, "we’ll only cut off the current heads. And you know what happens when you cut off a hydra’s head."

"Two more grow back," the manager murmured, understanding.

"Exactly," the young man said. "If we really want to overturn the system, not just decapitate a few figureheads to feel better about ourselves, we have to proceed carefully. One name at a time. One piece at a time."

The manager lowered her head slightly, a little embarrassed.

"Sorry. I... I don’t know, with my sister, I just want it to go faster."

"That’s understandable," Nash said, his voice becoming soft again. "But it’s more than a question of time now. She’s no longer a slave, and you’ll see her this very evening."

He turned back to the screen, where Halloway, broken, remained slumped in his chair, unable to find the strength to get up.

"With everything Ma’am has done," Nash continued, a smile appearing on his face, "we’re going to change this fucking world. Little by little. Name after name. And what happened to you and your families—" he turned again toward the manager and the young man, "will never happen again. Not to you, not to anyone else."

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