Page 17 of Cursed

“I said enough,” Xavier repeats, his voice cutting through the music like a blade.

The memory surfaces despite my efforts to suppress it. Monica’s wide eyes when I’d appear in places she thought were safe. The tremor in her voice when she’d beg me to leave her alone. The thrill I felt watching her terror grow, knowing I could take her whenever I wanted. It wasn’t about sex—it was about fear. Her fear wasn’t just intoxicating, it was addictive as fuck and I needed my fix as much as I needed air.

“She came to me,” Xavier says, his eyes locked on mine. “Crying. Hysterical. Said you’d been in her apartment while she slept.”

I return his stare. “You had no right to interfere.”

“She wasn’t yours to keep terrorizing,” Xavier counters. “The Hunt has rules.”

“Rules you conveniently enforce when it suits you,” I spit back.

The tension between us crackles. We both remember how it ended—Xavier relocated Monica without telling me, and the fight that followed when I discovered what he’d done was extreme. We’d never physically fought like that before.

“Let’s not forget who you really are, Landon,” Xavier says coolly. “Don’t pretend this obsession with Sadie Reynolds is anything but the same sickness wearing a different mask.”

Xavier’s words hit hard, like a vase shattering, and each shard embedding under my skin. Heat crawls up my neck, burning across my face. My fingers clench around my whiskey glass so hard my knuckles crack.

“Fuck you.” The words slip through clenched teeth. “You don’t know anything about Sadie.”

Xavier’s expression remains unchanged. “I don’t need to know her to recognize your pattern.”

My chair scrapes against the floor as I stand abruptly. Knox’s eyes widen with gleeful anticipation of violence.

“This is different,” I insist, though the protest sounds hollow even to my own ears.

“Is it?” Xavier sips his scotch. “The surveillance. The information gathering. The obsessive need to command every interaction. Tell me, have you been inside her apartment when she wasn’t home?”

My silence answers for me.

“Thought so.” Xavier nods. “Just like Monica.”

I slam my palm against the table, sending glasses rattling. “Don’t say her fucking name.”

The music continues pulsing around us, but our section has gone quiet. A few patrons glance our way before quickly averting their eyes. Nobody interferes with Blackwood business.

I hate Xavier in this moment—hate his analytical mind that sees through my carefully constructed walls. Hate that he can reduce my complex feelings for Sadie to a pathological pattern.

Beneath the rage smolders a darker truth—the chilling certainty he could be right.

I’ve watched Sadie sleep through her security cameras. Cataloged her habits. Memorized her schedule. Created a digital shrine to her existence on my private server.

Just like Monica.

The realization sends ice through my veins, making my stomach churn. What if this is just the same darkness wearing Sadie’s name? What if I’m incapable of normal connection?

“Sadie is different,” I say, more to myself than Xavier. But even as the words leave my mouth, doubt slithers through me.

I’ve told myself this before.

8

SADIE

The porcelain mask feels heavy in my hands as I approach the entrance to Purgatory. It arrived yesterday in a black, crimson-edged mailing box.

“ID?” The bouncer’s face remains impassive as I fumble with my wallet.

My hands shake so badly that I drop my driver’s license twice before successfully presenting it. The man checks a tablet, nods, and steps aside.