Brutal Obsession, page 1
BRUTAL OBSESSION
S. MASSERY
Copyright © 2022 by S. Massery
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Edited by Studio ENP
Proofread by Paige Sayer Proofreading
Cover photo by Michelle Lancaster (www.michellelancaster.com)
Cover design by Qamber Design
To the dark ones who make our fantasies come to life
CONTENTS
Introduction
GREYSON
SIX MONTHS LATER
1. VIOLET
2. GREYSON
3. VIOLET
4. VIOLET
5. GREYSON
6. VIOLET
7. VIOLET
8. GREYSON
9. VIOLET
10. VIOLET
11. GREYSON
12. VIOLET
13. GREYSON
14. VIOLET
15. VIOLET
16. GREYSON
17. VIOLET
18. VIOLET
19. GREYSON
20. VIOLET
21. VIOLET
22. GREYSON
23. VIOLET
24. VIOLET
25. GREYSON
26. VIOLET
27. GREYSON
28. VIOLET
29. VIOLET
30. VIOLET
31. GREYSON
32. GREYSON
33. VIOLET
34. VIOLET
35. GREYSON
36. VIOLET
37. VIOLET
38. GREYSON
39. VIOLET
40. GREYSON
41. VIOLET
42. VIOLET
43. GREYSON
44. VIOLET
45. VIOLET
46. GREYSON
47. VIOLET
48. VIOLET
49. GREYSON
50. VIOLET
51. GREYSON
52. VIOLET
53. VIOLET
54. GREYSON
55. VIOLET
56. GREYSON
57. VIOLET
58. VIOLET
59. GREYSON
VIOLET
Acknowledgments
Also by S. Massery
About the Author
INTRODUCTION
Hello dear reader!
Brutal Obsession is my darkest book to date. Please be aware if you have triggers that are common to dark romance/bully romance, this story checks quite a few of those boxes! (Including: blood/knife play, dubious consent, breath play, consensual non-consent, primal play, and mental/physical/emotional bullying.)
Greyson wanted me to inform you that he does not grovel. Under any circumstances.
Thank you and happy reading!
xoxo,
Sara
GREYSON
The cash slides from my palm into the valet’s. His fingers curl around the wad of bills as he pulls back, and he looks away.
Aw, he’s embarrassed.
The girl on my arm giggles and leans into me.
Money and good looks will help people get away with just about anything. I learned that at the tender age of five from my father, thank you very much. He toted me around and flashed his smile or his wealth, and doors opened for us.
Sometimes literally.
Sometimes figuratively.
We were invincible.
Look at that sentence. Then read it again. We. Were. Invincible.
Back when I was a kid, my father and I wore gilded armor. He was a king, and I was a prince. We floated above the rest of society, and nothing was out of our reach.
I experienced the world through my father’s view of getting everything he fucking wanted. It’s only natural that I became him.
Look, I’m not saying it’s right. I’m just saying this is how it works. People are sheep, all too eager to be sacrificed to the wolves. And the wolves… well, they only survived if they were willing to get a little dirty.
The girl releases me long enough to stumble around the hood of my car. She practically falls into the passenger seat, her dress shifting to give me—and the valet—an eyeful of her tits.
That right there is the only reason she’s here.
Paparazzi cameras flash from across the street, and I turn on my brilliant smile. The one that worked on the girl at the bar. And the waitress. And the cop who pulled me over a few hours ago for speeding. He let me off with just a warning.
I raise my hand as someone calls my name. Trying to get me to make eye contact, to get the perfect photo. Everyone wants something but fuck them if they think they can get it. They get the bare minimum of my acknowledgement, and it probably gives them a hard-on.
The passenger door shuts. I take one more look at the valet, making sure he knows. I see him. I saw him put the cash into his pocket. I want him to know that the money doesn’t buy speedy service—it buys his silence.
He nods once, then averts his eyes again.
I slip into my car and leave the restaurant parking lot with a screech of tires. The familiar, intoxicating smell of burning rubber follows me. I love it—it means I’m making an exit. One that people will notice—and remember.
The nameless girl leans over and licks my cheek. I’m undecided if it’s hot or gross, so I ignore it. She whispers something that I also ignore, and I press my foot harder on the gas pedal. I don’t care about her right now.
Only two more streets before we hit the highway, and I can push this baby to a hundred. She has a certain purr when she gets that quick. The steering wheel almost vibrates in my hands.
It’s an adrenaline rush I never pass up.
Later, when the girl is sucking my cock and moaning my name, I might pretend to give a shit about her.
I shift her away and readjust my grip.
We skid around a corner, our light green. I hit the gas, and we fly down the darkened street. Ahead of me, the stretch of road is empty—until it isn’t.
The car comes out of nowhere. My headlights illuminate the driver’s pale face seconds before I smash into her vehicle.
My airbags explode, and only my seatbelt, which I don’t remember putting on, keeps me from rocketing through the windshield. My passenger’s head slams into her airbag, and she falls back against the seat. Blood drips down her face from her nose.
I struggle to inhale. The seatbelt is too fucking tight, and smoke fills my car.
I unbuckle and shove my door open, falling out.
Fuck.
The asphalt bites into my palms. Miraculously, though, I’m unhurt. I pat myself down just for the hell of it, but besides what I can imagine will be a pretty nasty bruise across my chest, I’m okay.
The girl in my car seems to be okay, too. She regains consciousness, blinking slowly and touching her upper lip.
I stumble around to the front of my car, which is currently smashed up against the other one. A silver compact car, one of those old ones from a decade ago. I hit the driver’s side, but ahead of the seat. It almost appears like I was aiming for the front tire—in an effort to avoid her entirely, I guess, and I just miscalculated. That’s how it could be argued, one way or another. If it’s going to be argued.
“Help.” Her voice is soft, hoarse. Like she screamed before impact, and her throat shredded.
I wince.
She has blood streaked down her face, and I can’t tell if her eyes are open or not. Her airbags didn’t deploy, but her window is broken. Glass cuts, then. And even though I didn’t hit it, her door is dented inward.
The street is empty. No cars, no people. When does that ever happen in a city like this? A city that usually buzzes with nightlife—in fact, it is probably buzzing with people only a few blocks away.
I nod to myself, calculating. Always calculating.
Another gift from Daddy Dearest.
I go back to my car and open the passenger door. I pull the girl out and lead her around, sitting her in the driver’s seat. I fold her into it, even as she stares at me. Confusion mars her face, turning it ugly.
Confusion is akin to stupidity. If you can’t understand something, you’re just not thinking about it hard enough.
“Where’s your phone, baby?”
Bless her soul, she perks up when I call her that. It’s not her fault she doesn’t know it’s my cover, because I don’t have a clue what her name is. She points to the floor of the passenger seat. To her purse.
“You were driving,” I tell her. I lean into her, cupping the back of her neck. “I need you to tell them that, okay?”
Her brow furrows. “Why?”
“Because I’ll make sure your wildest dreams come true if you do this for me.” I meet her eyes, my thumb rubbing a soft spot on her neck just under her ear. She leans into it, barely, and sucks her lower lip into her mouth. “You borrowed my car for the night. You were going to return it to me tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” she repeats.
I nod once and release her, closing her back into the door. I dial nine-one-one on her phone and hand it to her, then take a step back. Once I’m halfway down the block, I call my father.
I thought that would be the end of the story. He wouldn’t blame me for leaving the scene. It isn’t just about getting our way. It’s about preserving his image. Our image.
Exactly as I predict, he doesn’t say a word abo
I arrive home thirty minutes later, and he doesn’t ask what happened. He’s like a lawyer, unwilling to incriminate himself in the fine print. If anything comes up, he’ll expect me to smooth it over. If I can’t, he will.
Two hours later, the cop cars come screaming into our driveway. I’m arrested on the spot.
SIX MONTHS LATER
1
VIOLET
A widely known fact about me: I don’t like surprises. I’m jumpy. I make unholy noises. My face gets beet red, and my body gets hot and tingly, and sometimes I feel like I’ve run out of air. Unfortunately, that combination is the perfect reaction for people who do like surprises.
Which is why I’ve spent my life being surprised. Birthday parties, jump-scares, visitors I wasn’t expecting… People love to see the dramatic reaction, and I seem unable to help but give it to them.
And, naïve me, I keep expecting people will remember I loathe them.
Not today.
I’ve barely pushed open the apartment door when the lights come on and a dozen people scream, “WELCOME BACK!”
I scream right along with them. My coffee goes everywhere, and my feet go out from under me. Only quick hands grasping my arms keeps me upright.
And falling would probably suck a lot under my conditions.
After my heart stops trying to escape from my tight chest, I find my darling roommate-slash-best friend at the center of the group, grinning wickedly. Willow knows my feelings on surprises and gleefully continues. I shake my head at her and laugh. If she had such reactions to surprises, I’d spring them on her, too.
With a wide smile, I glance around the room. Familiar faces that I’ve missed in the last six months fill the space. If anyone was here to surprise me, I’d want it to be them. Willow knows. Sometimes she knows what I want before I do.
I finally realize that someone is still holding my arms. I look over my shoulder, already sheepish, and meet Jack’s gaze. It takes me a second to register that it’s actually him, and my stomach knots.
“You okay, Violet?” His lips twist, him trying not to laugh at me. His eyes still crinkle, though. And damn, does he look as good as I remember.
I stabilize my feet under me before gently pulling away. “I’m good. Thanks.”
Not good. Not by a long shot. But I’m definitely not going to be spilling my heart out to my ex-boyfriend. Guess I forgot to mention that to Willow…
“I’m surprised you’re here,” I say.
He shifts and rubs the back of his neck. It’s his turn to be sheepish. We met here, at Crown Point University, our freshman year, and it was lust at first sight. I was on the dance team, and he was a football player. We would perform during half-time, and it didn’t take long for us to notice each other.
And why wouldn’t I have noticed him? He’s gorgeous. Wavy dark hair that he keeps a little longer than most guys, warm honey eyes. A square jaw, strong nose. He towers over me, too. People always said we looked good together.
We were opposites in appearance. He has the muscle mass, and I’m lean. The classic blonde hair and blue eye combination my mother always made a fuss about. Maybe that’s why my skin crawled every time someone commented on how attractive a couple we were. It was more a reflection on me than us.
He lifts his hand and moves my hair off my forehead. The gesture is intimate, but I’m too stunned to stop him. He brushes his thumb over the scar on my temple. “I was worried about you. You wouldn’t let me see you in the hospital. Or after?”
A sigh escapes before I can school my features into something a little more… regretful. “Well, I was embarrassed.”
That’s a lie. I just didn’t want to face whatever the fuck emotional roller coaster I was riding the last six months. Seriously. My life went from normal to shit in a split second. Adding Jack—and the life that I thought I had, the one that seemed to go up in a puff of smoke when I woke up in the hospital—would’ve been more pain than I was ready to accept.
“Violet!”
I step away from Jack, ignoring his wounded expression, and turn to my other friends. Half the dance team is here, and they all crowd around me. Someone pulls at my coffee-stained blouse, and another swoops in to clean the floor where my cup dropped. I had forgotten, in my Jack-shock.
“Lucky it wasn’t hot.” Willow nudges me.
“Luck and I aren’t on speaking terms.”
She visited faithfully every day while I was stuck in the hospital. Kept me sane, kept me looped in to the gossip. She’s the only one who knows what I went through, and I’m keeping it that way. I’m not in the habit of airing my dirty laundry—or my newfound nightmares. I’ve been plagued by bright lights, crunching metal, and snapping bones.
She rolls her eyes at my luck comment. “You need to change. We’re taking you out.”
Oh boy. My first instinct is to say no, but honestly? I could use a bit of normalcy. My therapist—the talk one, not the physical one—said something about getting back into a routine. Well, for the last two years, I’ve gone out with my girls on Friday nights. There’s nothing more normal than that.
I’m actually looking forward to it.
She leads the way to the bedroom I haven’t been in since… before. She steps aside and lets me do the honors. Opening the door is like cracking into a time capsule.
Fucking devastating.
Willow stands behind me, her hand on my shoulder, as I stare around at the remnants of the person I used to be. If I wasn’t aware of how different I was after six months away, I am now. Mentally, physically.
There are still clothes that I left on the floor. My chair is pulled out and covered in clothes. There’s a pile of books that I had planned to conquer over the summer in the center of the desk. My bed is made.
“I kept the door open sometimes,” Willow says. “Especially in the last week. So it shouldn’t smell too stale… Also, I changed your sheets. You’re welcome.”
I crack a smile. “Thanks.”
The luggage that I dragged inside earlier today is now at the foot of my bed—courtesy of Willow, I presume.
I step inside and go straight to the wall of pictures. Dance team competitions, selfies with my girls, photos of Jack and me at nearly every event you can think of—concerts and football games and the beach and house parties. Bonfires on the lake.
“You know I love surprises. So, thanks for that.”
Willow snorts. She and I met in high school, and we’ve been through thick and thin together. We’ve seen each other at our best… and worst. Evidently.
“The team wanted to be here when you got back.” She smirks. “Well, most of them.”
There are some girls on the dance team that Willow and I never vibed with. They’ve just got sticks up their asses, so why would we be friends with them? They only cared about chasing whatever team was doing well. Football, hockey, lacrosse.
Boring.
I go to my closet. “Jack and I broke up.”
“I know.”
“Of course you know,” I grumble. “You still invited him.” I yank it open and flip through clothes. I lost weight while I was away—but most of it was muscle mass. My body is soft where I used to be strong. Physical therapy helped, but not nearly enough. Not enough to give me back the muscles I had before.
