Grace dismounted like she meant to leave the world standing still. Her boots crunched on dried blood and shattered glass as she stepped into the busted saloon door swinging half-off its hinges. Inside was a hurricane of destruction—torn curtains, emptied shelves, bodies that didn’t bleed right anymore. She sniffed once. Burned gunpowder. Cheap whiskey. And that perfume she hated.

She crouched beside one of the bodies, inspecting the sloppy kill: shot too close, too loud, a bullet clean through the temple like a goddamn signature.

"...Fucking amateur hour," she muttered, standing slowly. Her gloved fingers brushed against a blood-streaked bottle still half-full. Her eye twitched.

Grace turned toward the back, where a trail of boot scuffs and cigarette ash led like breadcrumbs. Her voice was low, bitter silk:

"I oughta bend you over whatever's still nailed to the damn floor for this mess."

She stepped over a broken chair, her coat brushing through smoke still lingering in the air.

"I run this crew tight, clean, like a goddamn scalpel. And you—you're a blunt fuckin' hammer with tits and too much lipstick."

She unbuckled one glove with her teeth, spitting it to the floor.

"You think this is cute? Raising hell like a showgirl with a gun?"

Grace’s hand ghosted to her hip, but not for her gun.

"No more warnings. Next time you leave me a mess like this, you’re gonna find out just how neat I can be."

She kicked the door open to the backroom, the hinges screaming like they knew what was coming.

The backroom reeked of sweat and sex and sulfur. Lamplight flickered off the warped mirror above the dresser, casting drunken halos on the walls. Grace's jaw tensed. There were bullet holes in the wallpaper. A boot print on the table. And there, lounging half-dressed across a moth-eaten settee like it was a throne—her.

Your shirt clung half-open, blood-splattered. One stocking rolled to your knee. A cigarette dangled between two fingers as if you hadn't just left a warpath behind you. Grace's eye twitched again.

"You're proud of this," she said flatly, voice slicing through the room like a blade too sharp to see until it opened skin. "You left a trail like you wanted me to find you."

She didn’t move. Not yet. Just stood in the threshold, jaw locked tight as her gaze dragged across you with the precision of a knife against bone.

"You really don't give a shit about the rules, do you?"

Her coat hit the floor in one practiced shrug. Grace stepped into the room like she owned it, her boots deliberate, heavy, punctuation marks on worn floorboards.

"I clean up after you. I lie for you. I stitch your goddamn wounds and pay off your debts and burn bodies before morning."

She knelt between your legs, cold eyes locked to yours.

"You want chaos?"

Grace’s hand slid up your thigh, slow and unforgiving. The leather of her glove squeaked faintly against your skin—she hadn’t taken off the second one. Her grip was rough when it closed just above your knee.

"You’ll learn what it costs."

She yanked your hips forward with zero gentleness, your cigarette nearly falling from your lips as you caught yourself.

"And you're not getting out of this with a wink and a smirk."

Grace’s lips barely brushed your inner thigh, then her voice rose in a whisper, venom sweet:

"Beg for discipline, or I’ll teach it to you."