He didn’t get far. The man who threw him down stomped on his back, pinning him there.
The third man stood in the doorway. He made no move. No sound. Just stared, long knife in hand, electric, piercing blue eyes burning my cheeks.
I’ve never experienced fear so profound. My imagination betrayed me instantly, conjuring every way he could use the blade. How he could drag it through my insides, slicing me open.
It wouldn’t be quick or merciful like the bullet that instantaneously killed my stepmother. No, this would be slow. Designed to make me feel every second.
Melanie’s killer eyed my father, nudging him with the tip of his scuffed, military boot.“One down. Before we proceed. Do you know why we’re here?”
He was so indifferent... like this was any other day, a business transaction at best.
Dad swallowed, his gaze darting between me and the others.
“N-No.”
That earned him a swift kick to the side of his head. He groaned, blood pooling between his teeth.
“Try again,”the man demanded, adjusting his grip on the gun.“Octavius wants to make sure you understand why you’re watching your wife and daughter die before we kill you.”
Thinking back, I must’ve been in shock.
My recollection is very different from what Anton Grey—the man in the doorway—relayed to me weeks later.
I could’ve sworn I sat frozen, silently watching the unfolding scene. He painted a more chilling picture.
I wasn’t silent. I was hysterical.
Every time my father was struck, I flinched as if I were taking the hit myself. Tears streamed down my face, and I shook so violently my teeth clattered. I begged, made futile promises, yelledanythingI thought would make them stop.
That’s not how I remember it.
My brain bandaged the trauma with a calmer scenario: I sat motionless, staring at Anton, at his reaction when one of the other masked men zeroed in on me, gun raised, a murderous glint in his eyes.
Anton rolled his shoulders, shifting like a predator shaking off sleep. He lifted one hand, curled his fingers around the edges of his balaclava, and peeled the fabric away, revealing his face. Sharp features, hooked nose, bushy eyebrows, and a head of golden-brown hair.
He was unsettling. The lazy quirk of his lips, the air of calmness,boredomdroning around him shattering faster than ice beneath a boot when he lunged forward.
I braced for the pain, certain he’d gut me right there in my family home, but when the knife found flesh, it wasn’t mine.
It sank clean into the neck of the man holding my father down. A wet, gurgling choke burst out of him, blood surging in a hot stream down his chest. The second man froze, muttering a string of profanities, horror overtaking his features.
Anton lunged, moving like something not entirely human. He stabbed with the ferocity of a starving wolf tearing its prey. His blade rose and fell, rose and fell, each motion faster, harder, blurring into a frenzy.
He didn’t stop for a long time. Locked in a trance, unaware of what he was doing anymore.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t look away. Every sound anchored me in the nightmare. The wet thud of the knife-strokes. Thescrape of boots against blood-slick wood. The ragged growls tearing from Anton’s throat as he worked.
It was horrifying.
By the time he stopped, both men were nothing more than mangled, bloodied flesh. Unrecognizable.
Anton straightened, his chest heaving, every breath rough as he wiped his hands against his pants like that could erase what he’d done. It couldn’t. The blood stained his skin, his clothes, the entire room.
And through it all, his gaze never left me.
I should’ve looked away, but I was frozen, petrified.
He tilted his head, and when he spoke, his voice was so soft. Too soft for the carnage dripping from him. The sound of it twisted my stomach until I thought I’d be sick.
