85. Brooke
Brooke
John freezes in the doorway, wine bottle hanging in his hand.
The glasses tilt and clink softly, a stupid sound that doesn’t belong in a room full of bodies.
Seth stands in the middle of it, blood on his knuckles, gun lowered at his side. Four masked men are on the floor, limbs bent wrong, knives scattered near their hands.
I step in behind John and keep my gun trained at the back of his head.
“Put it down,” I demand.
John exhales and sets the bottle and glasses on a side table, slow and careful. He turns just enough to speak without looking at me.
“I let you guys be, I left you alone. What’s the point of finding me?”
My voice comes out flat and clear. “As long as you’re alive, you’re a threat.”
Seth’s gaze stays on John’s hands.
John’s voice cuts in. “So, you finally learned, haven’t you?”
His right arm shifts beneath the cloak.
I catch the movement immediately. His fingers flex near his wrist, slowly dragging something down from inside the sleeve.
Metal glints beneath the fabric.
Seth sees it too.
I fire.
The suppressed shot cracks through the room, and the bullet punches through John’s hand just as his fingers close around the knife.
Skin splits. Knuckles burst open. Blood sprays across the front of his cloak in hot, messy streaks.
The blade slips from his ruined grip, clatters across the tile, and spins away.
John jerks violently, clutching his mangled hand beneath the cloak while blood runs through his fingers and patters onto the marble.
I fire again.
The bullet tears through his left kneecap.
The joint blows apart beneath the fabric. Bone cracks. Blood bursts through the torn material and splashes across the floor as his leg folds wrong.
He screams behind the goat mask, but somehow he stays standing for half a second, swaying on the one leg still holding him up.
So I shoot the other one too.
The next round punches through his other knee and destroys whatever kept him upright. His legs buckle beneath him, useless and shaking, and he slams onto the marble hard enough to make the room echo.
His injured hand hangs at his side, shredded and dripping. Blood runs down his wrist, over his fingers, and onto the tile in thick drops.
Then his other hand reaches up and tears the goat mask off before throwing it aside.
The mask hits the tile beside him with a dull clack.
Now his face is exposed. The same face I grew up seeing across dinner tables and in quiet living rooms. The same calculating eyes that watched everything when I was a kid.
Without the mask, the performance disappears.
He was never really my uncle.
Just a man bleeding out on the floor with both legs ruined and fury burning in his eyes because he understands exactly how this will end.
Beau walks into the room carrying a red fuel canister in each hand. His eyes flick once toward John sprawled across the floor, then toward Seth. Without a word, he sets one of the canisters beside him.
Seth grabs it.
Beau turns and heads back downstairs to the girls, leaving us alone with John.
John’s expression shifts for the first time. His chest rises and falls unevenly, but he lifts his chin anyway, still trying to control the room with his voice.
“Do you want me to beg, niece?” John asks. “Do you want me to beg for my life?”
My voice stays calm. “It wouldn’t do you any good.”
John’s mouth curves into a thin smile. Blood stains the edges of his teeth. His eyes remain locked on mine.
“You will never be free of me. I’ll live inside your mind forever.
You’re still my creation. You’re the weapon I carved out of trauma and fear.
You survived because of me.” He points at me with his bleeding hand, fingers trembling.
“You’re not the victim anymore, Brooke. You’re a killer now.
Just like me. Just like your father. Just like Seth. ”
Seth holsters his gun against the tactical belt at his waist, then slides the bloodied knife back into its sheath before grabbing the canister.
He unscrews the cap.
The sharp smell of gasoline floods the room.
John finally glances at Seth then back to me.
“And it felt good, didn’t it?” he continues, his voice lowering as blood runs freely down his wrist. “Killing all those people to get to me.”
Seth steps forward and dumps the gasoline over him.
The liquid drenches John’s chest and pours across his ruined legs. It soaks into the fabric of his cloak and splashes across the marble beneath him.
John flinches hard as the fuel runs into his wounds. His eyes snap back to mine.
Even now, bleeding across the floor and reeking of gasoline, he studies my face as if he expects to find satisfaction there. Some trace of pride. Some reaction that proves he still owns a piece of me.
I pull the lighter from my pocket and strike the wheel with my thumb. The flame catches, small and bright above the metal casing.
I hold his gaze while the flame flickers in my hand.
“Actually, John… I don’t feel a goddamn thing.”
I toss the lit lighter at him.
The gasoline ignites instantly.
Fire races across his body in a violent burst of orange and white, swallowing the front of his cloak before he can draw another breath. Flames climb his chest, curl over his shoulders, and catch in his hair.
John screams.
The sound rips through the villa, raw and animalistic, nothing polished left in it.
He thrashes against the marble, but his ruined knees buckle uselessly beneath him.
Burning fabric melts against his skin. The gasoline spreads beneath him in a bright, hungry pool, crawling outward in thin streams of fire.
The smell hits next.
Smoke. Fuel. Burning hair and flesh.
His skin darkens and splits beneath the flames. Blisters swell across his jaw and neck before bursting open from the heat. Parts of his cloak fuse to his body while the fire eats through layers of fabric and skin together.
John twists in agony, his mouth open around another scream. For the first time, there is no performance in his eyes. No control. No lesson. No power.
Just terror.
For a few seconds, I watch him burn.
Then I raise the gun.
My sight settles between his eyes while flames claw up the side of his face.
The shot tears through the room.
The bullet punches into the center of his forehead with a wet, brutal crack. His head snaps back from the force, and the back of his skull bursts open against the heat and smoke. Blood, bone, and tissue spray across the burning marble behind him, hissing where it hits the flames.
For a split second, his body stays locked in place, fire rolling over his face and neck.
Then everything gives out. John collapses hard onto the floor while the flames keep eating through what is left of him.
The room goes still except for the crackling fire.
Seth steps closer and his shoulder settles against mine. His eyes move over my face, searching for any crack in the calm.
“You alright?”
“Yeah,” I reply.
I close my eyes.
I didn’t shoot him out of mercy.
I shot him because I was done listening to him scream. Done letting him take up space in the world. Done letting him be the shadow at the center of every ruined thing inside me.
That bullet wasn’t forgiveness.
It was closure.
For the first time in years, the pressure inside my chest is gone. No scream presses against my throat.
Seth reaches down and grabs the fuel can Beau brought upstairs. He starts pouring the remaining gasoline across the floor around John’s burning body. Fuel splashes over the marble and spreads beneath overturned chairs and shattered glass while the fire crawls outward in bright waves.
“Let’s go.”
We move through the villa quickly, checking corners and clearing each doorway as we go.
The stairs creak under our boots as we go down. We don’t talk until we hit the bottom floor and see Beau.
He’s in the living room near the back entrance with another gas canister resting beside his leg. Beau looks up when we enter. His expression stays flat, but his jaw is tight.
“I have someone waiting at a rendezvous point,” he says. “They can take the two girls from there.”
Seth nods once.
Beau continues. “You and Brooke wait somewhere near the coast. I’ll take them to the point. I’ll come back for you. Then we take the plane out.”
I look around at the expensive furniture and the soft lighting and the quiet walls. I think about the girl upstairs, the one that was already dead.
“First,” I say. “Let's burn all this shit down.”
Beau’s mouth twitches slightly like he already knew that was coming.
“Yeah, good thinking, Sinclair.”
He nudges the extra canister toward me with his boot.
I pick it up.
We move through the house again, opening every door and clearing every room. Closets, bathrooms, storage spaces. Each time a door swings open my chest tightens because I expect to find another girl inside. We don’t.
Seth moves ahead of me, pouring gasoline in heavy streams across the hardwood floors and rugs. The fuel spreads quickly beneath furniture and through the open doorways.
I take the other canister into the main room and circle the space. Gasoline runs down the curtains and across the door frames. I tilt the container higher and let it spill over the walls and furniture.
I want this place to burn fast.
Upstairs, smoke already drifts down through the stairwell from John’s room.
Seth glances at me once as we move for the door together.
The smell of gasoline sticks to our clothes as we step out of the villa.
We don’t stop. We put distance between us and the house, boots hitting the path as we move toward the dock.
Behind us, Seth flicks the lighter.
The small flame appears for half a second before he drops it.
The gasoline ignites instantly.
Fire races across the floor and climbs the curtains in seconds. Heat pushes outward as smoke begins to gather along the ceiling.
The villa finally looks like what it is.
Hell.
Seth and I break into a run for the dock while the fire behind us roars to life, growing louder with every step.
Beau already has the girls inside the boat.
He reaches out and grabs my arm as I climb in. Seth steps in behind me.
The boat pulls away from the dock while flames burst through the villa windows and begin to consume the roof.
I watch the fire swallow the house. I stare at it until distance softens the details. The fire keeps rising. Smoke rolls over the water.
Seth’s arm settles around my waist and pulls me closer while the fire spreads across the roof.
Beau steers toward the coast.
Seth turns his head toward me. His face is smeared with sweat and smoke.
“You hungry?” he asks.
I blink at him because the question feels strangely normal after everything that just happened.
“Yeah,” I smile. “A little.”