Page 153 of Buried in Blood
Fucking street trash smeared across the canvas of my empire.
I smash my fist into the desk, the pain blooming like worship. Bone meeting wood, meeting rage, meeting the part of me that never learned to lose.
“They think I’m done,” I whisper. “They think this was the crescendo.”
But they don’t understand—
I haven’t even started the secondmovement.
I kneel in front of the monitor like a disciple, eyes locked on Harmony’s last recorded frame.
She’s stepping out of the rec room.
That final glance over her shoulder.
The whisper.
The lie.
“You were supposed to be the altar,” I growl. “But now you’ll be the offering.”
I slap the screen.
Once.
Twice.
Until my palm leaves a blood smear over her face.
“Do you know what happens to those who defy gods?” I snarl. “They get rewritten.”
I stumble back, laughing now.
Manic.
Wild.
The kind of sound that makes lesser men flinch and stronger men kneel.
I drag my fingers through the blood on the monitor, tracing her outline, humming an old lullaby I don’t remember learning.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
The clock won’t stop.
Neither will I.
Because I’m not chasing Harmony anymore.
I’m hunting.
And when I find her?
I won’t just break her.
