Chapter 76:Hidden Desires

Lucas pressed his fingers lightly along the seam, his touch cautious yet curious. The wall gave slightly beneath his fingertips, confirming that this was no ordinary flaw.

He traced the crack with the tip of his finger, following its path downward until he found a subtle indentation—a latch, perhaps, waiting to be unlocked. A slow, mischievous grin spread across his face. What are you hiding, Dimitri?

With a soft press, the latch clicked, and the sound of shifting mechanisms echoed behind the wall. Lucas held his breath as the seam widened, revealing the outline of a hidden door. He gripped the edge carefully, pulling it open with deliberate slowness. The door swung inward without a sound, as if it had been waiting to be discovered.

Beyond the door, a narrow passage stretched into darkness, the air within cooler and tinged with dust and old wood. Lucas stood at the door, his heart racing with thrill. The mystery beckoned him forward, tempting him to cross the line between curiosity and danger.

Dimitri had secrets—secrets hidden behind walls. And now, they were Lucas's to uncover.

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As Lucas pushed open the heavy door, it groaned softly, revealing a room buried deep in shadow, its entrance seamlessly camouflaged within the wooden paneling. A faint scent of leather, smoke, and old books drifted out, blending with a sharper metallic undertone, as if the walls themselves had absorbed the residue of secrets kept too long. The air felt heavier here, oppressive, as though thick with the weight of unspeakable deeds.

The first thing that caught Lucas's eye was the lavish, almost oppressive elegance—the kind of room that whispered danger in muted tones. The furniture was dark and angular, every piece hand-carved from mahogany or ebony, gleaming under the soft amber glow of a brass chandelier. Deep-green velvet drapes framed the narrow windows, but no light crept in from the outside; the glass had been tinted, ensuring whatever happened within these walls stayed unseen. A massive antique desk sat in the far corner, papers meticulously arranged in neat piles, next to a decanter of amber liquid and a single lowball glass, hinting at the kind of work that didn't tolerate mistakes.

But it was the walls that held Lucas captive. They were plastered with photographs that told a story both familiar and horrifyingly foreign. Grainy snapshots from his childhood—birthdays, school plays, moments he thought had been lost since the death of his family—were pinned in unnervingly perfect sequence, arranged with a precision that bordered on psychotic. These weren't just old family memories; they were relics of a past Lucas had tried to leave behind, pieces he no longer even possessed. How could Dimitri have these?

A knot tightened in Lucas's stomach as his gaze drifted across the photos. There, tucked among them, was the one. The photograph he had screamed at Dimitri not to touch—an image so personal, so raw, it had enraged him to see anyone else's eyes on it. Yet here it was, displayed brazenly among the others, as if it were just another piece of some twisted puzzle. His skin prickled. Dimitri had looked at it anyway. And worse—he'd kept it.

The photo showed Lucas holding Annabeth high in the air, her little arms flung outward in pure delight. A rare, genuine smile lit his face, wide and gap-toothed, the absence of a front tooth making him look younger and more innocent. For a fleeting moment in time, the darkness in his eyes had been overwhelmed by something pure—joy, unguarded and without pretense. The boy in the photograph looked carefree, untouched by the heaviness that now seemed etched into his very soul.

The longer Lucas stared, the more it became clear that these weren't just childhood mementos. They were the fragments of his life, stolen and arranged like exhibits in a shrine built by someone obsessed with him. Some faces of people he once knew were crossed out with thick black marker, as if they had been erased from his world. Others were connected with taut red strings to recent photos—him at school, walking down the street, even lounging in his own house. The detail was staggering, every picture high-quality and impossibly close. Whoever had taken them captured the exact moment he let his guard slip—the faintest flicker of emotion in his eyes, the split-second vulnerability on his face.

His heart thudded heavily in his chest. He hadn't even known some of these moments were being watched, let alone photographed.

Further along his eyes trailed to a meticulously placed display case along the wall: a tarnished lighter with initials etched into it, a child's charm bracelet, and way more. Items he thought lost long ago—now displayed like trophies. Beneath the glass, a folded leather-bound notebook lay open, filled with sketches and notes written in elegant, slanted handwriting.

He stumbled forward, forcing himself to breathe steadily as he fought to calm his erratic heart.

Then, he saw the worst of it. Tucked among the more recent photos in the book were snapshots Dimitri took of himself and what looked like someone else secretly took as well—black-and-white and color images—spanning months of torment. In one, Lucas was shoving Dimitri against a locker, sneering as the other boy stared at him with a mix of hurt and longing. Another showed Dimitri cradling a bruise on his jaw, lips pressed into a tight line. Lucas swallowed hard.

He noticed the strange duality in Dimitri's gaze in those photos: resentment and devotion twisted together.

They documented every interaction between them—every punch, every smirk, every glance Dimitri had stolen when he thought Lucas wasn't looking.

His gaze fell on a section of altered photographs. Hearts drawn around their faces, clumsy and desperate, as though Dimitri was trying to rewrite the narrative in his favor. In others, Dimitri had scribbled over the faces of people standing near Lucas, erasing everyone but them. It was as if Dimitri wanted to believe there had only ever been the two of them—Lucas and Dimitri, locked in some inescapable orbit.

Lucas's name was scrawled over and over again in Dimitri's slanted handwriting. The notes were obsessive: 

"He hates me. He needs me."

" I can make him stay."

Lucas clenched his jaw, the weight of it pressing down on him. He always thought Dimitri was obsessed, but this was different.

The idea unsettled him more than anything else. Because part of him didn't want to leave.

He continued to read it , each page was more unhinged than the last—a jumbled stream of consciousness that seemed to spiral out of control, taking Dimitri's mind with it. The handwriting varied wildly: some lines neat and steady, others jagged and slanted, as if written in the throes of desperation. Words crossed out, rewritten, then circled over and over, bleeding through the thin paper like open wounds. 

"Why does he get to live inside my head when I can't even look at myself?"

"He ruins everything. He makes it impossible to think, impossible to breathe—but I need him. I always need him."

Lucas stared at the disjointed thoughts. Each line flickered between rage and resentment that burned hot, only to collapse into longing in the next page.

"He's poison,"Dimitri had scrawled, the ink heavy and smudged as if written with too much pressure. "I hate him for what he makes me feel. I hate that he makes me love him."

Lucas could almost hear Dimitri's voice in the words—frustrated, bitter, but tinged with an undertone of helplessness, as though he was trapped in a maze he couldn't escape.

Further in, the words became sharper, angrier, as though Dimitri was trying to convince himself of something. "He isn't better than me. He just thinks he is. He's nothing. Just a fucking monster pretending to be human."

But then, beneath that, another note, scribbled hastily like an afterthought: 

"And I'd still let him destroy me."

Lucas exhaled slowly, feeling a strange knot twist tighter in his stomach,he thought it was disgust at Dimitri's obsession but he knew that would never be true. This was Dimitri unraveling,every thought fraying at the edges, the lines between love and hate blurring into nothing. The pages continued in a manic rhythm, words looping in circles like a spiral tightening inward: 

"He loves to hurt me. That's how he shows he cares. I know it."

"Every bruise he leaves is a reminder I exist to him."

"I'll take his cruelty if that's all I can have. I'll take anything."

The next page was filled entirely with Lucas's name, scrawled over and over again in different sizes, as if Dimitri couldn't bear the silence in his mind without filling it with Lucas. Some were neat, almost elegant, while others were jagged scratches as though written with a shaking hand. On one corner, Dimitri had scribbled: 

"He doesn't see it yet. But he will."

The notes grew darker—thoughts that were more desperate, more controlling, more dangerous.Dimitri's need wasn't just to love Lucas; it was to own him, shape him, drag him into the same broken place Dimitri inhabited. 

"If I can't make him love me, I'll make him stay."

"I can be everything he needs—I'll be what he hates if I have to."

Lucas's fingers hovered over the page, his throat tightening.He could sense a twisted hope—a belief that if he just stayed, if Dimitri just endured, things would eventually click into place. 

On the next page, Dimitri's words took a darker turn, his break from reality more apparent: 

"He's already mine—he just doesn't know it yet."

" They don't get it. They think he's like them, but he's not. Lucas belongs to me. He always has."

A shaky scrawl at the bottom read:  "I think I broke something in him. Maybe he likes that."