Page 3 of Sweet Violence
Hargrove Hall rose ahead of me, and something in my chest tightened again—not panic exactly, but the kind of hyper-awareness that made my entire body feel a little too awake.
Nothing about the building looked welcoming, but I supposed it didn’t need to when it rose up in dark stone and sharp lines.
It looked less like an academic building and more like the setting of a Victorian ghost story where somebody definitely died of tuberculosis.
Very on brand for Wexley.
Iron-framed glass doors stretched across the entrance, the handles so heavy and decorative they looked fake. My reflection warped slightly in the curved glass as I reached for one, and the door resisted just enough to irritate me before finally giving way.
Cool air wrapped around me the second I stepped inside, cold enough to raise goosebumps across my arms and down the back of my neck.
My shoulders tightened automatically.
To the left, a wide staircase curved upward beneath dim lighting, the railing carved with intricate patterns that looked expensive enough to make me nervous about touching it.
Which was ridiculous.
Probably.
Portraits lined the walls beside me as I walked—old men preserved in oil paint and generational wealth, all of them wearing the same vaguely disapproving expression.
Every step I took echoed harder than it should have.
My phone buzzed suddenly in my pocket.
I froze.
For one deeply humiliating second, genuine panic flashed through me before my brain caught up and reminded me it was literally just a text message.
Get it together.
I dug the phone out and saw Rhys’s name.
Rhys: u breathing or did u faint in front of the rich people building
Rhys: blink twice if Henry Rothwell is haunting u
Rhys: good luck tho fr
A nervous laugh scratched at my throat.
My thumbs hovered before typing.
Me: I’m walking in.
Me: Stop calling it that.
Rhys: sorry
Rhys: a mausoleum for generational wealth
Rhys: go charm ur trauma husband
Heat crept up my neck.
Me: If I die in there I’m haunting you.
Rhys: perfect
