You know how expensive it is to buy a city?
Apparently not very. Not in this economy. Not if you're willing to dismantle civilization, feed it its own bones, and call the ruins salvation.
He would, of course.
That's the kind of man Emiliano is—rebuilds from ashes like it makes him some divine architect. As if pain and grief are just ingredients in his recipe for control.
He calls it trauma bonding.
I call it what it is: manipulation.
Take his wife, for example. Me. I'm not stupid—I know I'm a project. A pet. A possession with teeth.
And still, here I am. Leashed.
We arrived just before noon.
The sun made everything look bleached and brittle, like the whole place had been sun-dried and scrubbed of anything living.
A toy town. Four blocks wide, five long.
Just enough space for Emiliano to play house and pretend he'd built something real.
The car idled for a beat before he killed the engine. Silence fell like a trap snapping shut. I didn't move.
