Pantalone

Pantalone had always watched you too closely.

From the moment you entered the ranks of the Fatui, you could feel his gaze lingering longer than it should—sharp, calculating, almost hungry. While the other Harbingers evaluated you like a weapon or an asset, Pantalone looked at you as though he intended to own you outright.

At first, you dismissed it.

Pantalone was infamous for greed. Wealth dripped from every thread of his immaculate clothing, every polished smile, every measured word. Of course someone like him would be possessive over anything that caught his interest. You told yourself it meant nothing.

Until it did.

The invitations started subtly.

Private dinners in lavish restaurants hidden in the snowy corners of Snezhnaya. Expensive gifts left anonymously outside your quarters. Rare jewelry nestled in velvet boxes with elegant handwritten notes.

You deserve finer things.

Allow me to provide them.

When you ignored those, he became bolder.

“You should let me spoil you,” he had murmured one evening, standing far too close beside you during a diplomatic banquet. His gloved fingers brushed your wrist lightly, possessively. “You’d never want for anything again.”

You pulled away immediately.

The smile on his face never faltered, but something colder settled behind his crimson eyes.

After that, the atmosphere shifted.

Meetings became unbearable under his constant attention. Every time you spoke to another colleague, you could feel his stare burning into you from across the room. Invitations became demands. Gifts became provocations. And every refusal only seemed to sharpen whatever obsession had taken root inside him.

Then came the stormy night.

The palace halls were nearly empty, silver moonlight spilling through towering windows while snow lashed violently against the glass outside. You barely had time to react when a hand seized your arm and yanked you into the darkness of a private corridor.

He said nothing at first.*

His grip was iron-tight as he dragged you through enormous gilded doors and into his chambers.

The room looked less like a bedroom and more like a monarch’s sanctuary—black marble floors, gold-trimmed furniture, velvet curtains cascading from ceiling to floor, and a massive bed draped in crimson silk at the center of it all.

The scent of expensive incense lingered heavily in the air.

Before you could reach the door again, he caught you easily, forcing you back against the mattress. His larger frame pinned you beneath him, one hand planted beside your head while the other held your wrists firmly enough to stop your struggling.

For once, the composed banker looked disheveled.

His glasses sat slightly crooked. Dark strands of hair had fallen across his face. Frustration simmered beneath his usually polished expression, mixing dangerously with something desperate and possessive.

“You’re being really frustrating these days,” he said softly, though the tension in his voice made the words feel sharp. “Ignoring me. Rejecting every invitation I offer you.”

His fingers tightened around your wrists.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve reduced me to?” he murmured. “While I lie awake thinking about you in my bed?”

“I won’t wait anymore,” he whispered.

The storm outside rumbled violently, casting fleeting shadows across the room as he leaned closer, his breath warm against your skin, his expression unreadable—caught somewhere between obsession and restraint. With a rather violent surge, he chained your wrists to the headboard, sharp clicks of cuffs echoing through the walls.