Page 13 of Brutal
That’s Vexley House. Cold the way brisk weather isn’t. Our mother tried to make it warmer, but our father wouldn’t have it.
I slow my pace, let my breathing even out.
And still…
Her face surfaces again. Uninvited.
Those steady gray-blue eyes… The way she looked at me as if she was unimpressed.
I’m not used to that.
I flex my hand as I move deeper into the hall, involuntarily fidgeting with the ring on my right hand.
It looks like iron.
That’s the first mistake people make.
It’s actually black platinum, dark and uneven along the edges to look like it’s been worn down over the years. The surface isn’t polished. It doesn’t catch the light the way expensive things are supposed to. It absorbs it. Kills it.
That’s kind of the idea.
Most men would take one look at it and think it’s crude and cheap. Decayed, even.
They’d be wrong.
Nothing about the Vexleys is cheap enough to rot. Nothing on the outside, that is.
It doesn’t sit lightly on my hand. It settles in, as if it’s been part of me since I was born.
The face of the ring is flat, the texture rough enough to drag against the skin if I turn it too quickly. But the key carved into it…
That’s different.
It’s defined by clear lines. Untouched by the same wear that marks the rest of the ring. It stands out against the dark surface.
The head forms a narrow shape, almost a V if you look at it the right way. The shaft runs straight and unbroken, ending in teeth that don’t match on either side, like it was made to open something specific. A rusted old lock, maybe. The kind that’s been left out in the weather long enough that most would assume it’s useless.
I turn the ring once with my thumb. The edge of the engraving presses into my skin.
It’s built to last.
Like everything my father ever put his name on.
The corridor stretches ahead. My father’s oil portrait stares down at me. I look like him—same jawline, same dark hair, same build. Except for his eyes. His are so brown they almost look black. They fit him. Not even a hint of a hint of flexibility. Not a bit of doubt. He looks like he’s decided everything that matters.
I pass beneath his gaze without slowing.
He would dismiss a woman like Delaney Cross.
Or erase her. Rather, he’d demand that I erase her.
I reach the library entrance and stop as I read the words carved into the stone above the doorway.
Mercy is the first weakness.
Above them, centered, is the emblem. The iron key. The same one on the ring I wear. The ring my father and my brothers wear.
I stand there for a moment longer than necessary. The phrase usually steadies things, but tonight it doesn’t quite land the same.
