Page 63 of Maddening Fixation

“You bastard!”

“Ye’ll burn in hell for this!”

The cries echoed across Flynn Manor, swallowed by the cold Florida night.

I never looked back.

My boots continued forward at the same measured pace, each step steady against the polished stone leading back into Flynn Manor.

Behind me, another desperate cry rang out.

“Romeo... please...”

Another.

“We’re sorry!”

Then another.

“Mercy...”

The voices blurred together until they became nothing more than meaningless noise.

For ten years I had screamed my innocence.

For ten years I had begged someone—anyone—to believe me.

Not one of them had listened.

Their prayers reached me far too late.

The massive oak doors swung shut behind me with a thunderous boom, sealing the massacre outside.

The thick wood muffled the screams, but it could not silence them completely.

They lingered in the back of my mind, mixing with memories I had carried through every miserable day inside Ravencliff.

Justice.

I had dreamed of this moment almost every night.

Yet as the final cries faded into silence, victory did not feel the way I had imagined.

It tasted like iron and ash.

Like grief that had never truly healed.

I closed my eyes for the briefest moment.

“This was for ye,” I whispered so quietly only I could hear. “Every drop.”

When I opened my eyes again, Yarina was standing just inside the entrance hall.

She wasn’t afraid. She was heartbroken.

The sadness in her eyes told me she had already learned what my grandmother’s will demanded.

I was to marry her older sister before I could claim my inheritance.