Page 80 of Psycho Obsession
“No,” Jex says, racking the slide on his sidearm as he joins us. “Welcome to the beginning.”
Chapter
Thirty-One
JEX
The grand foyer of the mansion smells like lilies and old money—a scent I’m about to drown in gasoline.
The heavy oak doors didn’t just open; we tore them off the hinges. Now, the silence inside is the kind that happens right before a lightning strike. Crystal chandeliers shiver overhead as the roar of the city’s destruction bleeds in through the shattered entryway. The marble floor is a mirror, reflecting three shadows that Oakhaven thought it had buried in the salt.
I keep my hand on the small of Hallow’s back, feeling the frantic, jagged heat of her skin through the heavy coat. She’s vibrating. Not with fear—I know fear, and this isn’t it. This is the tension of a predator that finally has the scent of the kill.
“Upstairs,” I growl, my voice echoing off the vaultedceiling. “The ballroom. I can hear the cowards breathing from here.”
“Wait,” Hallow whispers.
She stops at the base of the twin winding staircases. Her eyes are fixed on the massive oil painting hanging above the first landing. It’s the ‘Official Family Portrait’ from five years ago. There’s Dad, looking like a saint in a charcoal suit. There’s Ryker and me, the dutiful sons, masks of stoicism hiding the rot. And there’s Hallow. She’s wearing a white lace dress that cost more than most people make in a decade—a dress that was meant to make her look pure even as she was being auctioned off.
Hallow walks toward it. She doesn’t hesitate. She raises the serrated blade and drags it across the canvas, right through our father’s throat, then down through her own white-lace heart. The sound of the fabric tearing is the loudest thing in the house.
“Better,” she murmurs, the jagged edge of the knife dripping with a bit of the Treasurer’s blood she hadn’t wiped off yet.
“Focus, Hallow,” Ryker says, his voice a cold, sharp snap. He’s already halfway up the stairs, his boots leaving soot-black prints on the cream-coloured carpet. “The guard will have locked the double doors. They’ll be armed.”
“Let them be armed,” I say, stepping up beside her and taking her hand. My knuckles are bruised, my pulse thrumming in my ears. “It’s more fun when they think they have a chance.”
We reach the top landing. The music is playing—some classical bullshit, Mozart or Vivaldi, meant to keep the panic at bay while the world burns outside. It’scoming from behind the massive gold-leaf doors of the ballroom.
I look at Ryker. He nods once. I look at Hallow. She licks her lips, her eyes dark, twin voids of vengeance.
I don’t use my shoulder. I don’t use a battering ram. I lift my boot and kick the centre of the gold-leaf doors with every ounce of the rage I’ve been hoarding since I was a boy. The locks snap. The doors fly inward, hitting the interior walls with a deafening boom that cuts the music dead.
The ballroom is a sea of silk and tuxedos. The “High Council” of Oakhaven—the men who signed the checks and the women who wore the diamonds bought with our blood—are huddled in the centre of the room. Their private security team, maybe six of them, scramble to raise their weapons.
I don’t give them the second.
I slide my sidearm from its holster and fire. Two shots. The lead guard’s head snaps back, his blood spraying across a woman’s pale blue evening gown. She screams—a high, piercing sound that harmonises perfectly with the chaos outside.
“Nobody moves!” I roar, the sound tearing from my throat.
Ryker steps into the light, his face uncovered, his expression as frozen and lethal as a winter morning. Hallow walks between us, the black coat falling open to reveal the blood-stained girl underneath.
The Council members shrink back, their faces pale masks of horror. They recognise us. They recognise the ghosts they created.
“The party’s over,” Hallow says, stepping over thetwitching body of the guard. She raises her blade, pointing it at the woman in the blue dress—the wife of the man who ran the ‘procurement’ wing of the clinic. “But don’t worry. We brought our own music.”
The ballroom is a cathedral of glass and terror, the air suddenly thick with the smell of expensive perfume and fresh, copper-scented spray. The woman in the blue gown is hyperventilating, her hands clutching her throat as she stares at the guard’s brain matter sliding down the gold-flaked wallpaper.
“Please,” a man stammers—the City Magistrate, a man who once patted me on the back while discussing ‘inventory’ over brandy. “We can negotiate. We didn’t know the clinic had gone this far?—”
“You knew exactly how far it went,” Ryker interrupts, his voice a low, terrifying hum. He moves toward the magistrate with the grace of a scalpel. He doesn’t shoot him. He grabs the man by his silk tie and slams his head into the grand piano. The ivory keys let out a discordant, crashing jar.
Ryker grabs a heavy crystal decanter from a nearby table and smashes it over the man’s skull. Shards of glass and aged whiskey spray everywhere, mixing with the blood pouring from the magistrate’s scalp. Ryker doesn’t stop. He picks up a jagged piece of the crystaland begins to methodically carve a ‘C’ for Choir into the man’s cheek while he’s still conscious and screaming.
“Hallow,” I growl, feeling the heat in my gut rising. “The woman in blue. She’s all yours.”
Hallow walks toward her, the serrated blade dragging along the marble floor with a rhythmic, screeching hiss. The woman falls to her knees, sobbing, her diamonds clicking against the floor. Hallow reaches out, her fingers—still stained with our father’s life—grabbing the woman’s perfectly coiffed hair.
