Page 89 of Cursed
“You’re certain?” Xavier’s voice is cold.
“Sadie found his signature in the code. It’s irrefutable.”
“We will handle it.” The call ends.
The silence stretches between us as Landon sets down his phone. I close my laptop, suddenly needing to fill the quiet.
“What will happen to him?” I ask, though I already suspect the answer.
Landon meets my eyes directly. “He will die.”
A chill runs through me despite the warmth of the apartment. “Have you...” I pause, the question catching in my throat. “Have you killed people before?”
Landon’s look is incredulous, one eyebrow raising as if I’ve asked whether water is wet or if the sky is blue.
“What do you think?” Landon responds.
I look away, studying Ravenwood Hollow’s skyline through the floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s easier to have this conversation without meeting his gaze.
“I assume you have.” My voice comes out steadier than I expect. “Probably more than once.”
“You assume right.”
The casual way he confirms killing people sends a chill down my spine. I knew already, of course—at least on some level. The Blackwood empire isn’t built on charity work and communityservice. However, hearing him acknowledge it so easily makes it real in a way it wasn’t before.
I glance back at him. “Do you enjoy it?” The question slips out before I can stop it.
Landon’s expression goes blank, as if someone flipped a switch and turned off all emotion. It’s the most unsettling thing about him—this ability to empty himself of any human emotion when discussing the darkest things.
“I do what needs to be done,” he says simply.
Not a denial. Not quite an admission. Just a statement of fact that reveals nothing about what he feels when he takes a life. If he feels anything at all.
The thought crystallizes in my mind.
Landon Blackwood is probably a psychopath. Not in the casual, everyday sense people throw around, but clinically—someone fundamentally incapable of empathy or remorse. A person who views others as pieces on a chessboard, obstacles to be removed, or tools to be used.
And I’m living with him. Sleeping with him. Helping him.
What does that make me?
Landon sets his glass down with a decisive click. “That’s enough work for tonight. Let’s order takeout and watch TV.”
I blink at him, caught off guard by the abrupt change in topic—from murder to dinner plans in the span of seconds.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing, just...” I close my laptop. “That’s very... normal.”
He shrugs. “Even monsters eat dinner, little butterfly.” There’s that nickname again, the one he started using after the Hunt. “What are you in the mood for?” He pulls out his phone, already scrolling through delivery options.
I study him. In the weeks I’ve been here, our evenings have followed a predictable pattern. We either work—separately or together on his security issues—or we fuck. Sometimes both. Butnever this domestic middle ground of takeout and television like a regular couple.
“Thai? Italian? That new fusion place on 52nd?” He looks up from his phone, waiting for my answer.
“Thai is fine,” I reply.
As he places the order, I puzzle over this shift. Is it a new tactic—lulling me into false security before striking harder than carving his initials into my skin? Or is he, against all odds, reaching for normalcy?
