Page 39 of Chasing After You (Twisted Desires #3)

Josh

The night air felt thick with humidity and something akin to anticipation. The stars above were faint behind a gauze of cloud, and the estate loomed, looking as picture-perfect as it always did.

I stood beside the rental car, gloves already on, as Dorian checked the last few items in the duffel: accelerant, rags, his burner phone, and a small crowbar. His movements were practiced, deliberate, and disturbingly calm.

“This feels insane,” I muttered, wringing my hands together as I watched him.

Dorian looked up, moonlight casting sharp shadows on his face. “Yeah, probably,” he agreed, a hint of a smirk on his lips.

We slipped around the side of the estate like we belonged there, which, I mean, Dorian owned it, so we kinda did.

Inside the house, the air smelled stale, like rot. Maybe it was my imagination.

We moved through the house in silence. Dorian handed me a small glass bottle filled with fuel-soaked cloth. “Library first,” he whispered. “The paneling will go up fast.”

I nodded, swallowing down the nerves.

Together, we planted it all methodically—library, dining room, Daniel’s office, the unused parlor, the master bedroom. We didn’t light anything yet. Dorian insisted on prepping every room before a single flame was born.

When we reached the foyer again, Dorian stopped and looked at me. “Ready?”

I paused. My hands were trembling beneath the gloves. “Yeah,” I replied softly.

He nodded once and led us back into the library. I felt a little guilty about burning books, but at least they were books tainted by their hands.

He lit the match.

The fire caught quickly—its greedy fingers racing up the walls, eating through the bookshelves like they were made of air.

Traveling room to room, we lit the rest of the points in quick succession, the heat blooming all around us.

After the last fire was set, we stepped out onto the back lawn, watching the inferno flicker to life.

Smoke curled into the sky, thick and black, a signal to no one and everyone. Dorian stood beside me, hands still in his pockets, eyes reflecting the firelight like they were made of it.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I think so. It feels right.”

He nodded, and we walked away together—two shadows slipping into the night as the estate that had once held our childhoods turned to ash behind us.

* * *

The scent of smoke clung to my clothes, to my hair, to my shoes. It was a stark reminder of what we’d done.

I’d been quiet for the first half hour of the drive, slouched in the passenger seat of the rental, the silence stretching long and taut between us.

The adrenaline had crashed, leaving me exhausted and emotionally drained.

There was no music playing—Dorian had left the radio off, like he knew I needed quiet, or maybe he did.

I kept thinking I should feel something more. Relief. Triumph. Regret. Fear.

But all I felt was heavy . It was as if the smoke from the house had gotten inside me and was weighing down my lungs.

Dorian’s fingers flexed on the steering wheel, knuckles stark white. He hadn’t said much since we got back on the highway. I saw the way his eyes continuously flicked between mirrors, scanning the road ahead, as he kept watch while I grappled with my thoughts.

“You okay?” he asked at last, voice soft enough to barely break the hush.

“It doesn’t feel real, but it also feels way too real,” I answered honestly, though my throat was dry and my stomach churned. “That didn’t make any sense, did it?”

Dorian glanced over at me. “Eh, I think I get it.”

“I thought I’d feel… better. Free, maybe.”

“You will,” he said. “Just give it time.”

I let my head fall back against the seat and closed my eyes, still picturing the fire licking through the windows of the home where I’d been locked in closets, dragged by my hair, screamed at until I couldn’t remember what I’d done wrong.

“I keep thinking about the window in my room,” I murmured. “The one I used to stare out of, imagining a whole different life. Hoping someone would come get me. Or that maybe, someday, your parents… they’d love me…”

“You got yourself out,” Dorian said firmly. He reached over and rested his hand on my knee. “You don’t need their love.”

I curled my fingers around his wrist and squeezed. “Do you think we’ll get away with it?”

“I know we will,” he said without hesitation. “Everything was planned down to the minute.”

“Right,” I murmured, heart fluttering with nerves. “I just—what if something goes wrong? What if someone saw us? Or they find our DNA?”

“Nothing’s going to happen, angel,” he said, calm and absolute. “Even if someone had seen us out there, we have airtight alibis. And it’s my house, they’d expect my DNA. Yours can be easily explained.”

His certainty was like a blanket thrown over my frayed nerves. I wanted to believe him. I did believe him. I’d followed him this far.

He looked over again, his eyes soft this time. “You deserved to watch it fall.”

A lump formed in my throat. I turned toward the window so he wouldn’t see me swallow hard. “Thanks for being with me,” I whispered.

“There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do for you,” he said.

The weight of that settled on me like gravity. I believed him. And part of me—maybe a darker, quieter part—was glad it had burned. Not just for me, but for the kid I used to be, and for Dorian, too.

As the highway stretched out ahead of us and the night deepened, I didn’t feel free yet. But I felt lighter.

And maybe that was a start.

“Do you think they loved you?” I asked, cringing after the words left my mouth.

Dorian kept one hand on the wheel and the other loosely resting over mine. His thumb stroked absently over my knuckles like he was trying to soothe both of us. I watched the blurred lights whip past the windows, the thick hush of night wrapping around us like a secret.

“My parents? No. No, that wasn’t love. I’m still not sure if they’re even capable of loving anyone but themselves,” he answered, not a thread of sadness in his voice. He said it the same as he would have stated a fact.

Out of the blue, my conversation with Greyson came to mind. Your brother appears to function similarly to my brothers.

I glanced over at his side profile, his bright blue eyes focused on the road.

“Dorian… um, have you ever…” I wasn’t sure how to ask without sounding callous. Still, I inhaled and questioned lightly, “Have you ever seen a psychiatrist?”

Dorian glanced at me, something unreadable flickering in his expression. “I haven’t.”

“Well, I was just… what if…” I trailed off, my nose crinkling at how much I sucked at this.

Luckily for me, he took the reins.

“Our family doctor wanted me to see one, but Victoria and Daniel were adamantly against it.”

I frowned, wondering how a parent could deny their child medical care like that. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “I think they knew I’d be diagnosed with something and were worried about it getting out that their precious heir was…” he paused, as if searching for the right word, “unfit? Crazy?”

“I guess that does sound like them,” I muttered. “I just hoped that because you were their heir, they’d want to make sure you were okay and healthy.”

“Why did you want to know?” he asked.

“Oh, uh—well, I was just thinking back to when I spoke to Greyson on the phone. He just… said some things that made me wonder about you. Wonder if you needed help…”

“What did he say?”

“Well… that—you know his brothers, the ones I was staying with?”

“I don’t have that poor of a memory, angel,” he laughed. I really loved it when he laughed.

“They’re…” I lowered my voice. “Psychopaths.”

“That’s interesting,” he hummed, the corner of his lip twitching up.

“He said that you might be like them…” I cautioned, pulling my bottom lip between my teeth.

Dorian’s eyebrows rose as he snorted and turned to flash an amused grin my way. “And what about you? Do you think I’m a big, scary psychopath?”

“I don’t think so? But sometimes you do some psychopath-type shit, you know?”

“Oh?” he asked, smirking.

“I mean you stalked me, and you drugged me, and… well, I think that’s it, but both of those things are illegal and not okay in the slightest!”

“I think that just makes me a criminal, not a psychopath, angel,” he chuckled.

I sighed in frustration. Why was he not taking this seriously?

He turned to look at me, the amusement fading from his eyes.

“Look. I’m not making fun of you, I promise.

But there’s no way I’m a psychopath, Josh.

I feel things way too deeply for that to be the case.

And sometimes I may do some fucked up shit, and I’ve been trying to work on that, but I do that shit because of how intensely I feel things. ”

I breathed out through my nose, eyes trained on the thin curve of moonlight overhead. “Oh… I guess that’s good, right?”

Dorian didn’t answer right away.

“Maybe,” he said.

I looked over at him. The faint glow of the dashboard lit the lines of his face, highlighting his beauty.

“I mean… It’s better than not feeling anything, isn’t it?”

He looked at me, gaze steady. “Sometimes I used to wish I didn’t have to feel things. But I’m glad… I’m glad that I do. I couldn’t imagine my life without feeling for you. Loving you, yearning for you, hurting for you…”

That quieted something in me.

I turned my hand under his and laced our fingers together. His palm was warm, his grip firm.

His voice was soft. “Would you like it if I saw one? A psychiatrist?”

My eyes widened in surprise. “You would see one? Yes , yeah, I’d like it. But only if you want to go! I don’t want to make you do something that you hate. But yeah… that way you can get help if you need it.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay?”

“When we get back home, I’ll make an appointment.”

“Really?” I asked, my voice breathy and full of wonder.

“Yeah,” he answered, shooting me a soft smile.

A few minutes later, the lights of the city shimmered in the distance like a mirage. We’d be at the hotel soon. Clean clothes, hot showers, cold air, soft beds. Miles and miles between us and the ruin we’d left behind.

“I love you,” I said.

Dorian gave me a quick, sideways grin. “I know.”

I laughed, fake pouting. “Asshole.”

He smirked. “I love you, too. You know I do.”

Yeah, I did.

And as we merged onto the exit ramp, tires humming, city lights drawing closer—I let myself think that maybe this was what freedom could look like after all. Quiet, strange, and tinted with ash, but ours.