Chapter 77:Breaking

Lucas stared down at the chaotic scrawl, a molten rage simmering beneath his skin. His fingers twitched, and a pulse of adrenaline surged through him, intoxicating and impossible to resist. The walls were thick with obsession—Dimitri's twisted fantasies carved into every page, photograph and every desperate scribble.

Lucas's lips curled back into a feral sneer. His entire body thrummed with the need to destroy, to tear apart every piece of evidence that Dimitri had tried to claim him.

With a violent sweep of his arm, Lucas sent the desk crashing to the floor, scattering papers and pens in a chaotic spray. The glass decanter shattered on impact, the amber liquid spreading like blood across the floorboards. He grabbed the chair next, slamming it repeatedly into the wall until it splintered into jagged pieces. The air was filled with sharp cracks and dull thuds as wood snapped under his fury.

He ripped the curtains from the windows, shredding the velvet fabric with his bare hands. His breath came in ragged gasps, and his muscles burned, but the pain only fueled him. He wanted destruction—needed it.

He tore the photographs from the walls with vicious precision, his fingers shaking as he ripped them into jagged scraps. Pieces fluttered to the floor like fallen leaves, but it wasn't enough. His chest heaved with the weight of his fury.

He wanted to erase Dimitri—erase every trace of this sick obsession.

Lucas grabbed the framed photos on the shelves and smashed them against the wall, one after the other. Glass exploded, jagged shards embedding in his palms, but he didn't care. Blood dripped from his hands as he tossed the broken frames aside, his grin widening with each shatter.

He moved to the bookshelf, ripping books from their spines, hurling them across the room. The once-elegant study was a disaster zone, but it still wasn't enough.His heart pounded in his chest, a storm of violence begging to be unleashed further.

He reached the display case—those trophies from his past—and stared at them with wild, unblinking eyes. One by one, he smashed them against the edge of the desk, the lighter, the charm bracelet, each item pulverized under the force of his anger. He laughed, a low, manic sound that echoed through the wrecked room, as if the chaos itself was feeding him.

Then his gaze fell on the leather-bound notebook.

He snatched it from the glass and flipped through the pages, his hands shaking with rage. Each desperate thought, each twisted confession, made his stomach churn.

"You don't own me, you fucking parasite!" Lucas snarled through gritted teeth, slamming the book shut.

He was ready to tear it apart—ready to burn every word—when he stopped.

His eyes locked onto a single passage scrawled near the bottom of a page. The ink was smeared as if Dimitri had been shaking when he wrote it:

"I love him. I know he'll destroy me, but I'll love him anyway."

Lucas's breath hitched, the fury inside him twisting into something strange and unfamiliar. His fingers tightened on the book until his knuckles turned white. *Love.*

A sick, twisted kind of love.

For a moment, the room seemed too quiet, the destruction surrounding him suddenly suffocating. His hands trembled as he reread the words. He wanted to laugh, to scream, to rip the pages out and crush them into dust—but something stopped him.

The words gnawed at him, clawing their way into his mind. Dimitri didn't hate him. Dimitri didn't fear him. Dimitri loved him—in a way that was ugly, broken, and desperate.

And that made it worse.

Lucas's grin faded, replaced by a twisted expression that teetered between fury and confusion. He didn't want love. He wanted fear. He wanted to own Dimitri, break him, make him bleed—but instead, Dimitri had taken that power from him with a fucking confession scrawled on a page.

He clutched the notebook to his chest, the sharp edges of torn paper biting into his hands. His breathing slowed, but the rage still simmered beneath his skin, coiling tight like a spring. He could destroy everything in this room, wipe away every trace of Dimitri's obsession—but the words would stay.

They were carved into his mind now, an infection he couldn't cut out.

Slowly, Lucas sank to the floor, surrounded by the wreckage of the room. His hands trembled as he flipped through the notebook again, scanning the jagged handwriting, the words that bled with obsession and love.

"He'll ruin me. But I'll let him."

A slow, unsettling smile crept across Lucas's face—one that was more dangerous than his earlier rage.

If Dimitri thought love would save him, he was wrong.

Lucas would break him anyway.

_____

Lucas sat on the ruined floor, his chest rising and falling in uneven gasps, fingers still gripping the torn notebook. Blood smeared the paper from his cuts, staining the ink like a twisted signature, binding him to words he couldn't erase. His breaths hissed through clenched teeth, short and jagged, like he was holding back a scream that threatened to tear out of his throat.

The word circled in his mind, gnawing at him.

*"Love."*

It crawled under his skin, thrumming through his veins like poison. The room spun around him—broken furniture, shattered glass, and pages ripped to shreds—but that word lingered, sinking its claws deeper into him with every breath. **Love.** Dimitri had written it as if it was some kind of truth, some immutable thing that could justify everything, could explain what Dimitri felt for him.

Lucas's nails dug into his palms, reopening the shallow cuts. He shouldn't care.Dimitri's feelings didn't matter. Love didn't matter.

But it did. And that was the problem.

The notebook lay open in his lap, its pages crumpled and bleeding, and still, he couldn't stop reading the same line over and over: *"I love him. I know he'll destroy me, but I'll love him anyway."*

His lip twitched. A laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep inside him, hollow and bitter. *Destroy him?* He could do that in a heartbeat. He could tear Dimitri apart, reduce him to nothing, and enjoy every second of it. That's what should matter—the thrill of it, the power.

Yet something twisted inside him, unsettling and strange.

The words wouldn't leave him alone.

Lucas slammed the notebook shut, his breathing ragged. He tried to shake the thought loose, to force it out of his mind, but every attempt only drove it deeper, the syllables wrapping around his brain like a noose. Love. Love. Love.

He stood up abruptly, swaying as dizziness hit him. His hands shook violently at his sides, his fingers twitching like they were still aching to destroy something.

And yet, he didn't. He couldn't.

The notebook—filthy with obsession—stayed clutched in his bloodstained hands.

His gaze drifted toward the window. He could picture him, curled up in the dim light of his room, hands shaking as he wrote those damned words.

Lucas's pulse quickened, his heart pounding against his ribcage. His nails dug deeper into his palms, and he bit down hard on his lip until he tasted copper.

He could see every detail in his mind—the way Dimitri's lashes lowered when Lucas got too close, the way he fumbled with his words but never looked away. The way his voice trembled just slightly, not from fear.

Lucas pressed his hands to his temples, digging his nails into his scalp until the pain became a dull throb. This isn't love,he told himself.

But the more he tried to convince himself, the deeper the obsession burrowed. He wanted to break Dimitri.But not just break him—no. That would be too easy, too quick. He wanted to unravel him, strip him down piece by piece until there was nothing left but Lucas's name in his mouth, whispered like a curse and a prayer all at once.

He exhaled slowly, his breath shaky and uneven. His hands dropped to his sides, blood still trickling from the cuts on his palms.

He wanted to possess Dimitri.

Forever.

Lucas stood motionless, rooted in the chaos he'd created, his breaths heavy and uneven. His mind swirled with jagged thoughts, a storm of rage and obsession spinning so violently that he almost felt sick. The notebook rested loosely in his hand now, forgotten but still clutched like a lifeline.

He didn't know how long he stood there, the world around him narrowing to the ruined room, to the torn paper and bloodstains. Time became irrelevant. It was just him—and Dimitri.Not physically, not yet, but still there, haunting his mind.

Lucas closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, fighting the tension coiling in his chest. He let the silence press down on him like a weight, hoping it would crush these feelings out of existence. But instead, it only made them louder, sharper.

He stepped back from the window, his reflection fractured in the shards of broken glass scattered on the floor. His grin faltered, replaced by something cold and unfamiliar. His hand brushed over the leather-bound notebook again—his fingers lingering a moment too long. He should've destroyed it. He should've burned every page until there was nothing left of Dimitri's twisted confessions but ash.

He squeezed his eyes shut, jaw tightening until it ached. This wasn't love.It couldn't be. Not for someone like him. He was incapable of love. What he felt for Dimitri was hunger—an insatiable desire to control, to own, to consume. Anything more was a lie.

He opened his eyes again, the fury simmering just beneath the surface. And yet... there was a pull.A small, insidious voice whispering from the darkest corners of his mind: What if?

What if he let it in? What if he didn't fight the infection?

If Dimitri loved him so much, Lucas would break him slowly. He would ruin him, piece by piece, until there was nothing left but that love, twisted and broken beyond recognition.

He could almost see it—the shattered look on Dimitri's face, the moment he realized that loving Lucas was his greatest mistake. Lucas would make him suffer for it.And in that suffering, Lucas would find his satisfaction.

The grin crept back across his face—slow, dangerous, and full of malice.

Lucas inhaled deeply, the taste of blood still fresh on his tongue.

He glanced down at the notebook one last time, his fingers tracing the jagged edges of the pages. Then he pressed it to his chest, his manic grin widening as if he'd just uncovered the key to everything.

"If you want to love me, Dimitri..."Lucas whispered under his breath, the words dripping with venom. "...then I'll show you what that really means."