Page 25 of Heresy
Dmitri’s cruelty was a slow, patient art form. He smiled while he did it. My fear was his pleasure, my pain his masterpiece. He was a sadist who found his humanity in the breaking of others.
Hex is no artist. He's a storm. There was no joy in his assault, only a flash flood of raw, possessive rage. He looked at me with a hatred that felt like it was burning him alive from the inside out. He wasn't hurting me for pleasure. He was hurting me because he's in pain.
That single, chilling distinction changes everything. It doesn't lessen the terror, but it gives it a name. It gives it a shape. And his words, spoken in this very cell, come back to me.
"My ghosts are bigger than yours."
It wasn't a boast. It was a confession. The explosive rage in the hallway wasn't a display of strength; it was a moment of profound weakness, a total loss of the control he prizes. A king secure in his crown doesn't need to brand a woman to prove his authority.
He's a man in a cage of his own making. What I witnessed wasn't the roar of a lion. It was the sound of him rattling his own bars.
This realization doesn't make me feel pity. Pity is a useless, dangerous emotion here. A wounded animal is the most dangerous kind. But it does make him… understandable. It makes him a puzzle. And a puzzle has a solution. A weakness. A key.
This newfound clarity is a spark in the ashes of my humiliation. Understanding is a weapon, and he has just handed me the key to his entire armory.
I push myself up from the cot and walk to the small, barred window. I look out at the faint, ghostly reflection of myself in the glass. I see the shadows under my eyes, the cut on my lip, the angry, branded mark on my shoulder. I see a victim.
But then I look closer, into my own eyes. And I see something else. I see the girl who survived her father’s cruelty. The woman who fought back against a monster and walked away. A survivor.
He thinks he broke me. He thinks he branded me.
He’s wrong. He just showed me his wound.
A new, cold purpose settles in my bones. I am no longer just the ghost in his cage.
You want to play with ghosts, Hex?I think, my reflection staring back, a silent promise in my eyes.Fine. I've been living with them my whole life.
Let's see who haunts whom.
TEN
WHISPERS IN THE DEN
HEX
The heavy oak of my office door clicks shut behind me, the sound a definitive seal on the violence I just committed in the hallway. I don’t lean against it. I walk with cold, controlled precision to the bar in the corner, my back ramrod straight. My hand is perfectly steady as I pour a measure of whiskey into a heavy crystal glass. This is the performance, even when I'm the only one watching. The part of the king that must remain unbroken.
My office is a glass-walled box on the first floor, a fishbowl overlooking the workshop of Serpent Cycle Works. It's a world of invoices, client calls, and the clean, sharp smell of welding. From here, I am the President in a different sense—the respectable face of a high-end custom shop. I project an aura of cold, unshakable control.
I turn and lean my back against the bar, the silence of my office a suffocating blanket. The grim satisfaction I should feel for reasserting my authority is absent. In its place is a hollow, sick feeling—the dread of a man who has just let the monster out of its cage. I close my eyes, but her face is burned onto the back of my eyelids. The shock, the pain, and the moment her defiance shattered, leaving something broken behind.
Animal. You acted like a fucking animal. The thought is a vicious snarl. You didn't do it to teach a lesson. You did it because her fire was a judgment, and you needed to see it extinguished.
My stomach heaves with self-disgust. I slam the glass down and drive my fist into the solid plaster of the wall. Pain, white-hot and brilliant, explodes up my arm. A welcome sensation. A clean pain that momentarily silences the filth in my head. I lean my forehead against the damaged wall, my breath coming in harsh, ragged gasps, staring at my bloody knuckles. A perfect reflection of the man inside.
The intercomon my desk buzzes, a harsh, unwelcome sound. Rook's voice, clipped and all business. "They're waiting in the church."
Of course they are. A rule was broken. A price must be paid. Publicly.
I don’t answer. I straighten up, ignoring the throb in my hand. I pull my cut over my t-shirt, the leather settling across my shoulders like armor. When I re-enter the main room, the scene is a tableau of silent tension. Every patched member is gone, already in the church room. Only the prospects and the club girls remain, their faces pale and anxious. They know what's coming.
I walk through the heavy oak door. My club is assembled, standing in a semi-circle that leaves an open space at the foot of the massive oak table. In that space, on the hard concrete floor, are Fuse and the prospect, Static, on their knees. They are positioned like prisoners before a king's court. Rook stands to one side, his face a mask of stone. Zero stands on the other, his hand resting on the hilt of the Ka-Bar sheathed at his belt..
I don't speak. I walk to the head of the table and take my seat, the king returning to his court. I look down at the two men. Fuse meets my gaze, his jaw tight with a mixture of anger and fear. Static is trembling, his eyes fixed on the floor.
"You were given a decree," I say, my voice dangerously quiet. "A direct order. She was to be a ghost. No one speaks to her. No one looks at her. No one touches her." My gaze sweeps over every man in the room. "The rule was absolute."
I look back at Fuse. "You chose to test it. Why?"
