Chapter 60
Seth
Icome back to myself standing in blood.
It slicks the marble floor in wide, uneven smears, footprints layered over footprints where guests tried to flee and failed.
Red tracks curve, overlap, and stop abruptly where bodies fell.
Glass crunches under my boots when I shift my weight.
It is everywhere. In my treads. On my hands. Up my sleeves.
Somewhere behind me, something crackles and pops. A fire alarm is going off, shrill and useless, competing with the low electrical buzz of damaged lighting overhead.
I blink.
I barely remember parts of it.
Bodies fill the room in obscene arrangements.
Folded at angles the body isn’t meant to bend.
Draped over tables that were set for champagne and hors d’oeuvres less than an hour ago.
Linen is soaked through, floral centerpieces crushed flat and dark with blood.
A violin lies snapped in half near the stage.
A crystal chandelier still sways, scattering light over the carnage like a spotlight.
I count without meaning to.
Five.
Ten.
Twenty.
Thirty at least.
Bodies cover the marble and the carpet between the tables.
The security team went down first.
I had the rifle waiting before I ever walked in. It was already positioned, already sighted. I took the guards before anyone inside understood what was happening. Two at the entrance. One at the service corridor. One near the glass wall overlooking the city.
I took their radios next.
No calls went out.
After that, everything broke open.
The shotgun handled the ones who got too close. The rest I handled however I had to. It didn’t happen clean. It didn’t happen in order. It happened fast and loud and angry.
People ran the moment the first blast echoed through the hall. Some tried to hide behind tables. Others sprinted toward the exits.
The doors locked automatically when the system triggered.
They only trapped themselves inside with me.
None of it slowed me down.
I scan the room one more time and finish counting.
Thirty bodies. Maybe more.
A man slumps against a banquet table near the wall.
What is left of his face is unrecognizable, skin split, bone showing through in places.
I remember him because I made him bite the wooden table first. I remember pressing his mouth down until his teeth met the edge.
I remember the sound when they shattered.
Then I kicked. Again. And again. I didn’t stop when he dropped.
I stopped when there was nothing left to give.
Another body lies on its side a few feet away, throat opened by the jagged edge of a champagne bottle.
I remember the sound more than the movement.
The wet gurgle. The frantic hands clawing at nothing.
The bottle breaking in my grip. I remember stepping over him and using what was left, shoving it into someone else’s eye socket, pushing until it resisted, then pushing harder until it did not.
Luke stands near the wreckage, hands clasped behind his back, posture relaxed, like he is walking through a private gallery curated just for him.
“Beautiful,” his eyes bright, almost reverent. “You finally stopped pretending.”
I step over a body without looking down.
He smiles wider, teeth flashing white against the red-streaked light. “You see it now? This is who you are when you stop lying to yourself.”
I don’t answer. I’m too busy taking inventory.
Two bodies near the bar have shotgun wounds blown clean through their backs.
Exit wounds the size of fists. One of them slammed forward hard enough that his face shattered a glass display.
Teeth and crystal litter the floor beneath him.
Another lies facedown, spine twisted, blood pooled so thick it looks black.
I remember the recoil. I remember not lowering the gun afterward.
A woman in a designer gown is slumped against a pillar, throat gone. A man near the stage is missing an arm below the elbow. I don't remember taking it, only the sound he made when he realized it was no longer there.
They deserved it.
Every one of them.
These people were not innocent partygoers. They were donors and facilitators. Predators wrapped in money and charm. They smiled at galas and preyed on people like Brooke. Like my mother.
I step forward and then I hear it.
Victor Voss drags himself across the floor, leaving a wet trail behind him as his body struggles to move through the blood he has already lost.
His expensive suit is torn open and soaked through, the fabric clinging to him in heavy, dark patches. One arm hangs useless at his side while the other trembles so badly he can barely pull himself forward. His face is swollen and split, his eyes nearly closed beneath bruised, broken skin.
He looks small now, stripped of everything that once made him untouchable.
He no longer resembles the tech billionaire genius he claims to be.
Victor Voss is the richest member of The Collective, and his money funds half the monsters in this room while his influence keeps people like them protected when bodies start piling up.
His daughter was Amber Voss.
My brother’s lovesick little lapdog. The one who killed Mila. The one who betrayed Brooke and put a knife in her.
I walk toward him with the shotgun aimed steadily at him, closing the distance without hesitation.
“Please,” he gasps, his voice wet and broken as he struggles to breathe. “I don’t know where Grant went. He left early. I swear.”
I press the barrel under his chin and tilt his head up so he has no choice but to look at me. His entire body shakes under the pressure, and his breath stutters unevenly against the metal.
I think of my mother’s face on that screen, bruised, crying, apologizing for something that was never her fault.
“You're going to give me everything you have,” my voice is flat and stripped of anything human. “Anything tied to the Collective. To Grant. Contacts. Ways in.”
“Yes,” he sobs immediately. “Yes. Anything. Please. Just tell me if I do, will you let me live.”
“You’re not in any position to negotiate,” I tell him, “but it won’t hurt your chances.”
I hold my hand out.
“Your phone.”
He hesitates, and that hesitation costs him.
The barrel presses harder into his skin, forcing his head back another inch.
He fumbles the phone out with shaking fingers and hands it over, his grip unsteady and desperate.
“Unlock it.”
He does.
I don't move the gun.
“Open your banking.”
His breathing stutters harder now, panic bleeding into every movement. “I can’t, there are limits, there are approvals.”
I press the barrel harder into his throat, cutting off whatever excuse he thinks will save him.
“Well, you better figure out a way to make it work because that piece of shit took my mother’s life.” My voice drops lower and colder with every word. “So now, I’m gonna drain every dime from the fucking Collective, and I’m gonna kill all of you.”
His eyes widen, terror finally breaking through whatever composure he has left.
“I can send some,” he stammers. “Ten million. Maybe more. I need access codes.”
“Do it.”
His hands shake so badly that he fumbles the screen twice before finally getting into the account.
I pull my burner from my pocket and unlock it, turning the screen toward him.
“Wire it to this account.”
His eyes flick to the numbers. He doesn't question it. He knows better.
It is one of my offshore accounts. Clean enough to move through without immediate flags, buried under layers I built long before tonight.
I watch everything.
I watch every number, every transfer, every confirmation as it happens in real time.
“Twenty.”
“I can’t move that much at once,” he says, his voice breaking. “There are flags, there are systems, it will trigger audits.”
I press the barrel harder under his chin, forcing his head back. His breath stutters.
“Look around you,” I respond. “Does it look like I give a fuck about your audits.”
His eyes flick across the room, landing on the bodies, the blood, the destruction.
“Twenty,” I repeat.
He swallows hard, his throat working against the barrel still pressed to it. “Okay. Okay.”
It takes longer than it should.
There are multiple screens and multiple confirmations, a second account, and a workaround that he has clearly used before.
He knows how to move money like this.
Of course he does.
While he works, I reach into my pocket and pull out a slim drive.
I take his phone from his shaking hand long enough to connect it and start the extraction. Data begins transferring immediately, pulling contacts, accounts, message threads, and routing paths tied to The Collective.
He watches me do it, breathing uneven, but he doesn't say a word. He doesn't dare.
Finally, the transfer goes through.
My burner vibrates in my hand.
I glance down.
The confirmation sits there. Twenty million wired in. The transfer is fast enough for now and temporary in a way that doesn't matter.
It is a start.
When he finishes, I nod once.
“Thanks.”
I pull the trigger.
The blast tears through the ballroom, deafening and absolute. His head disappears in a violent spray that paints the wall behind him. Bone and blood and something soft spatter the marble. His body collapses and goes still, face-first into the mess he helped create.
Luke claps slowly, the sound sharp in the silence.
“Proud of you,” his voice warm. “This is the Seth I knew and loved.”
I lower myself into one of the chairs.
The shotgun rests across my knees, speckled with blood. My hands are still shaking, but my breathing begins to even out in slow, uneven pulls, like my body is trying to remember how to function after forgetting.
I pull the drive free from his phone and slide it into mine.