Chapter One
Wyck
Past
I’m trapped in the lair of a man who thinks God made him in His image, just meaner. My father doesn’t speak.
He roars. Breaks things that don’t belong to him. Throws punches when words won’t bend the world his way. Right now, that rage is thick in the air, suffocating, syrupy, and soaked in bourbon.
A paperweight shatters against the wall near my head.
Glass rains down like it’s snowing violence.
Another tantrum.
Another symphony of destruction composed in my honor.
He’s pacing like a caged animal behind his desk, muttering curses under his breath, some aimed at me, some at the Devil only he thinks he outranks. When he sucks his teeth, it clicks like a landmine. That little tick in his jaw pulses as if something’s gnawing at him from the inside out.
Good. Let it eat him alive.
His hair’s slicked back, tight to his skull, revealing that bulbous forehead that makes him look more cartel than corporate. His gold rings flash like warnings. Every time he cracks his knuckles, it sounds like bones breaking in advance.
He's preparing to use them.
And yet, despite everything, I smile.
I always fucking smile.
Because it pisses him off more than silence ever could.
He steps around his desk, looming like some bloated god of wrath. The stink of scotch, cigars, and the rot of too many sins clings to his breath as he leans in.
“You know,” he starts, rolling up his sleeves like a butcher before a slaughter, “I thought we were past the days of whipping your ass. Thought maybe you finally learned to walk in your legacy.”
My legacy? He means the blood-soaked one. The one stitched together with chains and closed-casket funerals.
“But clearly,” he continues, grinding his molars into splinters, “you’re still just a mouthy little shit who thinks the world bends for a grin.”
I tilt my head and speak slow, deliberate. “Wouldn’t it be easier if we all enrolled in the same class, Father? You could learn that you’re not king anymore. That you’re irrelevant. Rotting. And I’m the one writing the next chapter.”
His face twitches. That’s all I needed. I start laughing.
Laughter that spills from my chest like venom, splitting the air, until a flash of gold rings across my vision.
Crack .
His fist slams into my jaw with a feral crunch. My world staggers. My knees buckle. My grin fractures, but doesn’t die.
That’s when they grab me. Two of his lap dogs, leashed to loyalty, tear me off the floor like a carcass and drag me out. My head hits the molding. Then the stairs. Then cold.
I don’t scream. Screaming’s for prey.
They dump me in the basement, the one they remodeled just for me. Concrete floors. One flickering light. And memories soaked into the walls.
And then?
Nothing.
Just darkness. And time. And the sound of my own ribs swelling against my breath.
A white-hot light stabs me awake. Not warmth. Not dawn. A surgical beam dissecting me. My skin screams under it. My brain sloshes like meat in a blender.
I groan, shifting, every joint a monument to pain. My limbs are unrecognizable, bent things held together by spite. He called me a pussy .
Me.
If only he knew what I’m capable of now.
I try to stand. Collapse.
Blood drips down my lip, and I lick it, like communion.
He won’t win. He can’t. Not in the long game.
I force myself upright, teeth bared in a smile too wide, too bloody, too full of future vengeance.
That’s when the door slams open.
He steps in, towering, smug, reeking of his own mythology. The man who thinks because he broke my bones, he broke me. But he doesn’t see it. Doesn’t feel it.
The way death curls in my lungs now. How it stretches my grin.
“You ready to give up?” he asks, voice like gravel soaked in gasoline.
I meet his gaze. Hollow. Smirking. “And if I say no?”
He grins. Something wolfish. “Then I guess I’ll get creative.”
He taps his chin with a finger. That mock-pensive look he wears when planning torture like it's a boardroom agenda. “Let’s say… it’s everyone you care about. One by one. Screaming your name while I make you watch.”
He doesn’t even blink.
And something inside me ruptures. Like a rib snapping inward.
My silence is a coffin. But my mind… My mind is sharpening blades behind my eyes.
“I’ll give up,” I whisper. “For now.”
He claps his hands. Smug bastard. “Knew you had it in you. Daddy always knows best.”
I’m gonna peel his skin off one day. Piece by piece. Make him beg with his own tongue nailed to the wall.
“Get him on the plane,” he barks to his men. “Thirty minutes. I want him out of the country before the bruise on his jaw blooms.”
That word, plane , hits like another punch. “What the fuck do you mean, plane?”
“You’re studying abroad. Exile, education, call it whatever you want. You’ll return when I say you’re ready. Or not at all.”
“You can’t just ship me out like-”
“I can. I will. And if you breathe a word to her , I’ll start with her first.”
His eyes gleam with something feral. He knows exactly who her is.
Fucking bastard.
I stay silent. Let his men grab me. Haul me out like trash. Because I know something he doesn’t.
You can bury a Devil.
But you better be damn sure the coffin’s sealed.
Because when we come back?
We bring Hell with us.