Chapter 9: The Introduction to Justice

Thomas met Liv and me at the door wearing a dark silk robe, completely unlike the formal suits he wore during the mixer. He had the overconfident, slightly rumpled look of a man who owned the building. His smile was predatory, yet easy. He ushered us into an apartment that was all high ceilings, steel, and glass overlooking the city. Every piece of art looked expensive enough to pay my tuition for a year, which immediately made me tense up. The tension was not fear, just a sudden intense awareness of the profound financial and social chasm between his world and mine.

“Liv, finally,” Thomas said, his voice slow and heavy. He did not look at me directly at first, just gave me a cursory glance as if I were a piece of furniture that had been recently rearranged. Liv, standing right beside me, radiated calm authority that usually eclipsed everyone else in the room. This time Thomas was challenging her gravity a little bit, which was something I hadn't seen happen before.

“Thomas,” Liv replied, her tone perfectly smooth, professional, and slightly familiar, which felt calculated to set an expectation of intimacy. She carried a sleek, dark bottle in her hand wrapped in thick, slightly textured paper. It was clearly expensive, one of those bottles that signaled a deliberate gesture. “I brought a proper bottle of Bordeaux this time.”

Thomas’s attention finally moved from Liv to the bottle and then back to Liv. “You read my mind, though you didn't have to bring anything,” Thomas replied, running his hand over the silk of his robe as if admiring the material. “Let’s get that opened.”

Liv handed the bottle to him. I noticed the slightest hardening around her eyes as Thomas accepted it. Liv did not move to follow him into the kitchen space, and instead walked further into the living area. She moved as if she already belonged there, already in control of the space. I hesitated for a moment, still feeling like the intruder I was.

“Emma, come here,” Liv commanded, making the simple instruction feel like part of the assignment. I obeyed instantly, walking over to stand next to her near the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Thomas returned from the kitchen shortly, no less relaxed. He carried three glasses instead of two, along with a heavy corkscrew and a decanter. He made a small presentation of unwrapping the bottle.

Liv watched him with a clinical intensity that made the skin prickle on my arms. I started to wonder what observation this was meant to be, since the assignment was always about me asserting power. I had a sudden, cold premonition that I was not the one being tested tonight at all.

“Can you help him open that?” Liv asked, slightly raising her voice.

Thomas looked over, mildly surprised. “Oh, I’ve got it,” he dismissed me instantly, already struggling slightly with the cork.

“No, I insist,” Liv said, stepping closer. Her voice had changed slightly. There was a hard edge beneath the professional smoothness, a command that felt much stronger. “Emma, go help Thomas with the cork. I want you to feel the resistance.”

I walked towards the kitchen island where Thomas was working, swallowing down the sudden knot of anxiety that always preceded an unplanned confrontation. Thomas sighed almost imperceptibly, but handed me the bottle and the corkscrew.

The cork was stubborn, and Thomas had cheaped out on the screw—or perhaps he had just never learned to use a proper one. The heavy bottle felt solid and real in my hands, unlike the fabricated realities I had been navigating for the last few assignments. Finally, with concentrated effort, the cork gave way with a satisfying thwock.

“There you go, perfect,” Liv praised me from across the room. She sounded genuinely pleased with the execution of this simple physical task.

Thomas took the bottle from me and poured the dark red liquid immediately into the decanter, shaking his head slightly. “You certainly train your protegees well, Liv. Even for simple tasks.”

The observation felt like a small, unexpected insult, but Liv only smiled with utter composure. “Emma is learning the value of efficiency, Thomas. It’s a key component of autonomy.”

Thomas began pouring the wine. Liv did not tell me what to do next, so I stayed still, watching him fill the three glasses. The room seemed entirely too quiet. The street sounds were muffled by the high quality windows; the silence felt thick, expectant, almost menacing.

Thomas presented the first glass to Liv, the second to me, and kept the third. He raised his glass slightly. “To efficiency then. And to lovely distractions.”

Liv raised her glass, keeping her eyes fixed on Thomas. I hesitated for a moment, then echoed her action. We all took a small sip. The wine was rich, heavy with the taste of old wood and dark fruit. It felt luxurious and serious on the tongue.

“I won’t deny, Thomas, you have always had exceptional taste,” Liv complemented him, tilting her head.

He laughed, a satisfied, deep sound. “I knew you’d appreciate it, Liv. Tell me, what’s next on the agenda for our lovely law student here? More disruption to corporate events?”

Thomas still treated me as if I were a project, a possession on display between him and Liv. I felt the familiar stirring of contempt, which was rapidly becoming one of my most dependable internal resources. Contempt was much cleaner than the old anxiety.

“Tonight’s curriculum is purely observational, Thomas,” Liv explained, moving away from the window and towards the low leather seating area. She settled smoothly into the sofa, gesturing for me to sit beside her. “Emma is learning how leverage is exerted in environments where power is not actively contested, but simply assumed.”

As she spoke, I watched Thomas. He took another long sip of the wine. Then he took another. He seemed completely relaxed, but something about his posture felt slightly less rigid than before. There was a slow-motion quality to his movements already.

“And what exactly is my role in this lesson?” Thomas asked, settling into a leather armchair opposite us.

“Your role, Thomas, is authentic behavior,” Liv replied, her voice soft but insistent. She placed her glass down on the thick wooden coffee table. “I need Emma to observe the architecture of casual, absolute control. That’s something you excel at.”

Thomas chuckled, a sound that quickly turned into something more like a heavy sigh. He rubbed his eyes briefly, looking suddenly less sharp, though he attempted to ignore it. The wine was acting fast, much faster than any alcohol should have, even a strong Bordeaux.

“Authentic behavior, right,” Thomas agreed, though his words were beginning to blur faintly at the edges.

Liv leaned forward. The change was instant. The smooth mentor facade vanished, replaced by a cold, analytical intensity that was terrifying in its focus.

“Thomas has an extremely long history of asserting his ‘casual, absolute control’ over women who can’t fight back, Emma,” Liv stated, her voice sharp and precise, eliminating all pretense of social lubrication.

My head snapped towards Liv. My mind stalled. This wasn't about a merger, or a rezoning proposal, or petty social leverage. This was fundamentally different information. This was an accusation.

“Liv, what are you talking about?” I whispered, glancing anxiously at Thomas.

Thomas was blinking slowly. The color seemed to have drained slightly from his face. He was clearly trying to regain focus. The quick, potent sedative was already taking hold, pulling his consciousness down heavily.

Liv ignored my panic completely, keeping her gaze locked on Thomas, who was now leaning back heavily into the chair.

“Four documented cases, Emma,” Liv continued, her voice maintaining the tone of a clinical lecturer reading from a prepared file. “The youngest was an intern at his firm, seventeen years old. He used his position, his financial leverage, and the threat of professional ruin. The police report was filed, but nothing was ever pressed due to a settlement and extreme intimidation of the victim. Thomas leveraged his position, not just his money.”

My breath hitched. The information hit me like a physical blow, leaving me unable to process the immediate reality of what Liv meant. This was not the boundary-testing curriculum I had signed up for. This was something real, something dark, something unforgivingly consequential.

“It’s not true,” Thomas mumbled, the words thick and slow, sinking deep into the leather of the armchair. He tried to raise a defensive hand, but it moved too sluggishly.

“The first lesson of absolute control, Emma, is realizing that the people who wield it are predictable,” Liv explained, still addressing me, cutting Thomas out of the conversation entirely. “They are creatures of habit. They prey on the timid, the vulnerable, the new entrants. They use their established architecture to minimize resistance.”

I felt a sudden lurch of nausea. The wine tasted bitter in my mouth. I remembered the first time I met Thomas at the mixer, the instant dismissal in his eyes, the casual way he looked right through me. Had he already been sizing me up, deciding if I was compliant enough to be his next target? The thought curdled my stomach.

“I only approached him for the assignment, Liv,” I stammered, feeling panic surge in a cold wave. “The manufactured value. I didn’t know…”

“Of course you didn’t know,” Liv affirmed, finally turning her dark, focused eyes onto me. “That’s the beauty of the lesson. You test the architecture of control, and you discover what kind of structure resists manipulation most effectively. In this case, Thomas’s power is built on systemic silence and the compliance of those beneath him.”

Liv reached across the table and picked up Thomas’s half-empty glass. She swirled the dark wine, watching the sedimentation.

“Thomas has been eliminating vulnerability from his equation for years,” Liv stated, putting the glass back down. “We are simply doing the same thing for our curriculum.”

The word eliminating hung in the air, weighted with a promise that felt lethal. Liv was not talking about discrediting him or exposing him. She seemed to be talking about a final, permanent removal.

Thomas’s head bobbed slightly. The sedative was nearing its peak effectiveness, dragging him down into oblivion. He was fighting a losing battle to stay conscious.

“Tell her about the seventeen-year-old, Thomas,” Liv urged, her tone now dangerously seductive, leaning in close without ever touching him. “Tell her how you convinced her that submitting was a necessary professional calculation.”

Thomas only managed a low moan, his gaze distant, unfocused.

The realization hit me fully, brutally: Liv did not bring me here for another lesson in social boundary testing. This wasn’t about manufactured value. This was the dark purpose behind the entire curriculum, the terrible secret that underpinned every assignment. The targets I had manipulated were not random—they were all predatory, arrogant men who had misused their power.

Liv had been training me to take them down.

I felt a terrifying, dual pressure: the urge to flee immediately, to separate myself from this horror, and a strange, cold fascination. The latter was the addiction Liv had groomed: the craving to know, to understand, to be close to absolute power, even if that power belonged to an executioner.

“This is Act Two, Emma,” Liv whispered, her voice low enough that it cut through the silence of the room, meant only for me. “The Curriculum of Justice.”

The phrase resonated, aligning perfectly with the shift she had mentioned after Assignment 5, the theft of the necklace. That assignment wasn’t about stealing an object; it was about proving total detachment from consequence, committing a funeral pyre for my former self.

I gripped the edge of the sofa, my knuckles white. “Liv, you brought me to a killer,” I managed, the word feeling too small, too mundane for the reality in front of me.

“No, I brought you to a monster who thought he was immune,” Liv corrected, her voice entirely devoid of emotion. She stood up from the sofa and walked around the coffee table until she was right in front of the slumped Thomas.

Thomas was completely horizontal now, resting heavily against the cushions. His eyes were closed, his breathing was shallow but steady. He was no longer a person, just a body occupying space, a problem awaiting resolution.

Liv paused, looking down at the man who was now utterly helpless before her. The moment stretched, heavy and still. Liv’s face held a look of profound, clinical satisfaction.

“I am simply showing you what happens when the architecture of control is reversed, Emma,” Liv explained, still maintaining the pedagogical tone. “We are replacing his fearlessness with your absolute, undeniable power over him.”

I couldn’t move. The panic was still there, a constant hum under my skin, but the analytical part of my brain—the one nurtured by years of law curriculum and Liv’s training—was already working to rationalize the situation. Predators deserve this. If the legal system failed, this is necessary. This is justice. I hated myself for even thinking it, but the thought offered a hideous comfort, a way to package the monstrosity into something functional and moral.

Liv knelt on the expensive carpet beside Thomas’s armchair. The movement was graceful, almost ritualistic. She started to gently trace the fine silk lining of Thomas’s robe, running her fingers along the hemline.

“He thought that showing his power was the ultimate act of dominance,” Liv murmured, her voice strangely tender, leaning close to the man. “He didn’t understand that true power is the total, unacknowledged vulnerability of the target.”

She reached up, slowly untying the thick silk cord around his waist, letting the edges of the robe fall open slightly, revealing the soft skin underneath. Thomas, entirely sedated, was incapable of reacting.

This was the next level of the curriculum, far past social manipulation. Liv was displaying the ultimate act of psychological leverage: absolute violation under the guise of an intimate, shared moment.

Liv placed one hand on the smooth fabric of Thomas’s chest, leaning down until her lips were only inches from his ear. She spoke a quiet, dark sentence to the unconscious man, a phrase I couldn’t quite make out, but the intent was clear: this was a final judgment.

Then, Liv positioned herself over Thomas. She moved with deliberate sensuality, completely uninhibited, utilizing eroticism as the final tool of humiliation and control. Her movements were slow, focused only on demonstrating the finality of stripping away Thomas’s last vestiges of control over the interaction.

She reached down, pulling the edge of her own shirt up slightly, exposing only a sliver of skin near her waist. She leaned low again, guiding his extremely heavy, sedated hand up to grab her there, maintaining the illusion of participation.

Liv looked up at me, eyes glistening in the dim, expensive apartment lighting. She offered no explanation, nothing but the silent command to witness. The entire act was a grotesque, final confirmation of Thomas’s impotence and our control.

I was paralyzed, recognizing that every step leading to this moment—the manipulation of Vance, the theft from the Monarch, the breaking of my father’s will—had been preparation for the absolute psychological detachment necessary to stand here without screaming.

Liv moved her hand from his, repositioning herself slightly above him in the chair. Her focus was entirely physical now, concentrated on the act of complete, intimate dominance. The silk of the robe whispered against the skin. She shifted her body again, aligning herself with the man, her expression still clinical.

She lowered herself down onto him, moving with agonizing slowness. I watched the final, silent degradation unfold.

Liv positioned herself further down, moving below his face. She guided his mouth to her, holding him in place with the sheer force of her focused will, even though he could barely breathe, concentrating on the sensation that was not a choice, but a final, imposed compliance.

Thomas began to softly lick her, deep in the heavy, unknowing sleep of the sedative, completely at Liv’s mercy.

Liv looked up at me one last time before his breathing evened out completely, leaving him fully asleep, sedated beneath her.