Page 2 of His Coveted Obsession

He promptly drove up the long driveway at seven thirty, got out of the vehicle, and opened up the door for me, allowing me to slide into the back seat.

“Where would you like to go, Mr. Easton?” he asked.

The driver had always been kind and polite to me, so he got to live.

“To Father’s office, please.”

ThebuildingFatherworkedin was nondescript—a warehouse, so to speak. It was large, housing contraband, sex-trafficked slaves, and weapons. He was very open about his job whenever he came home. He’d also begun training me to take over the business one day.

I shoved my hands into the pockets of my slacks, fingering the small daggers there, as I walked through the corridors, passing offices and staff with guns. At the end of the hall, Father’s office stood with the door closed. I rapped on the wood until he told me to enter.

“Easton? What are you doing here?”

I looked a lot like him, though I was shorter. We had matching honey-wheat hair, fair skin, and an aristocratic nose. He was also broader than I was. My body was built more like my mother’s. Then again, I was only fifteen.

His office contrasted with the outside. It was elegant, full of books, old wood, expensive rugs, and stolen artifacts.

I sat on a leather club chair in front of his desk and folded my hands in my lap, my leg resting over my knee, fingers tapping out a rhythm in my head.

He sighed and scanned over some files on his desk. “I asked you a question.”

“That depends on you.”

He looked up with pale, tawny-brown eyes that matched mine, his brow raised in question. “That’s brazen of you. Explain yourself and be quick about it. I’m busy and have no time for sullen boys.”

“I killed Mother and the staff. I stabbed her repeatedly. Thirty-seven times, to be exact. I was quicker about it with the servants and my nanny.”

His eyes widened, and he abruptly stood. “Tell me you’re joking. I don’t have fucking time for this!”

“You know I never joke.”

His face turned red, about to blow, before I raised a hand to silence him. “Did you know?”

“Know the fuck what? You and I will deal with this. Sit there while I call some of my men to go over to the house.”

“Did. You. Know.”

The rage within me started building again. It festered like acid in my soul. And it felt… strangely good. It made me feel alive, as if I had been asleep my entire life, and suddenly I was wide awake, ready to face my greatest triumph.

After he made the call, he barked out his orders and then hung up. He sat back in his leather chair, breathing back his composure.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His eyes flashed as if a memory surfaced, and I knew in that moment he had lied.

I stood and fisted my hands on his desk. “Did you know?!” The burning through my body was like fire, and I wanted to bathe in it. God, tofeelagain. To feel something other than indifference. Nothingness. “She has molested me since I was eight!”

He looked away, maintaining his calm, before he glanced back at me and scoffed. Then his eyes flashed in doubt, but just for a second. He may not have known for sure, but he had wondered, and yet he still did nothing.

My hand pulled out the dagger without his notice as the burning rage fueled me and pushed me over the edge toward murder. I couldn’t let him live.

Thanks to my stature and build, and years of kung fu, I leaped onto his desk, straddled his lap, and pressed the dagger deep enough into his jugular that some blood leaked out. One wrong move, and he would bleed out.

“Move and die. I just killed four people. I won’t hesitate to kill you. I can’t tell you the pleasure it brought me. This is what you and Mother created. This is the end result of your parenting.”

“Now, Easton…”

“You knew something was wrong. You knew she was doingsomethingto me. Maybe you didn’t know exactly what it was, but you had some idea. I read it in your eyes that look too much like mine. I canseeinto your soul. Yet you did nothing to save me fromher, even with all your training of me, no one could protect me from my own drunken mother late at night.”

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