Page 67 of Shattered Obsession

I don’t know if I can come back from what I’ll do next.

The moment I crash through the broken door, time itself seems to freeze. Damian has her. His arm is locked around Thalia’s chest like a steel bar, while a glinting knife presses menacingly against her throat. She gasps, her eyes wide with unmistakable terror, yet they’re glued to mine, tethered by an unseen force.

“Step back,” Damian sneers, the cruel edge in his voice as sharp as the blade he holds. “One more step, and I’ll open her up.”

I lift my hands slowly, deliberately, trying to give him no reason to escalate. “Alright. I’m here. No sudden moves.” My voice remains calm, but inside, I’m a raging inferno. “You don’t want to do this, Damian.”

He laughs, a cold, ugly sound that chills me to the bone. “Don’t I? She was mine first. You think she belongs to you? No, no. She’s just playing house until she remembers who gave her what she deserved.”

I can feel the muscles in my jaw tense as I grit my teeth. “You didn’t give her anything but scars. Let her go, Damian. This is between you and me. You want a fight? Fine. But she’s not part of it.”

Damian’s grin widens, an ugly display of triumph. “Oh, but she is. She’s the whole point. Without her, what are you? Just another man. With her—” He applies the knife harder, making Thalia whimper once more. “I own both of you.”

My pulse roars in my ears, the adrenaline pumping through me like a drug. My hands flex at my sides, itching to fight, to protect. I know there’s a gun hidden in his back pocket, I saw the outline shift when he moved, but I also know this: I’ll bleed, I’ll burn, and I’ll fight to my last breath before I let him win.

-Damian-

The fury igniting in his eyes nearly amuses me; he believes he can take her from me, that he can swoop in and be the hero. What an idiot. He doesn’t understand that she’s already marked. Already ruined. Mine.

I press the knife harder against her throat, relishing the way she whimpers softly, the sound fueling a twisted pleasure within me. She shakes when I touch her.

They all misunderstand that reaction, even her. They mistake trembling for weakness, for hatred, for fear. But fear is intimacy. Fear means I matter.

When someone fears you, it means you are carved into them.

Xander thinks he loves her. He doesn’t.

Love is fragile. Fleeting. Delusional.

What Thalia and I have is permanent.

I branded myself beneath her ribs. I live in her nightmares, in the shadows of every quiet moment she tries to claim as peace. I am written into her.

She thinks running will free her?

She forgets I taught her how to crawl.

When my blade touches her skin, I feel her breath hitch, and that, that right there, is connection.

Xander thinks winning means saving her.

He has no idea that saving her just keeps her trapped in the same cage.

Because the cage… is me.

“See how quiet she gets when I touch her? She remembers. Her body remembers. You can’t erase that.” The weight of the gun in my back pocket gives me a sense of steadiness. One wrong move from him, and this ends quickly. But quick is not what I want. I want him to suffer, to know what it feels like to be powerless.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

-Xander-

Every instinct in me screams to lunge forward, to rip the knife from Damian’s hand and tear him apart. My heart races, adrenaline pumping through my veins at the mere thought of his blade hovering perilously close to Thalia’s throat. But I know I can’t act recklessly, not while her life hangs precariously in the balance. So instead, I do the thing that feels more unnatural than anything I’ve ever encountered. I wait, forcing every muscle in my body to remain still, to simmer with contained fury.

“You know what you are, Damian?” I ask, unwilling to show any hint of fear. “You’re nothing but a coward. You couldn’t handle a woman saying no, so you carved your way into her soul with cruelty and fear. That’s not power; that’s weakness.”

His laugh slices through the tension, sharp and mocking, but I notice his grip on the knife twitch ever so slightly. Good. He heard me.

I take a deliberate step closer, my hands raised in a gesture of peace, though every nerve in me is screaming to take him on.