His Dark Obsession

Chapter 1 – Shattered Glass

Lily’s POV

I USED to think heartbreak would feel like drowning—silent, suffocating, slow.

Instead, it felt like fire. A wildfire was ripping through everything I thought I knew.

The sound hit me first—low laughter muffled through the half-closed door of Robert’s penthouse bedroom. A woman’s laugh. Not mine. High, throaty, indulgent, like she was drunk on him.

I froze in the doorway, clutching the bottle of champagne I had stupidly picked up on the way, a pathetic celebration of our so-called future. My stomach dropped, the glass nearly slipping from my fingers. But I pushed the door open anyway, because some sick part of me needed to see. Needed the truth.

The truth came like shattered glass straight to the chest.

Robert Hale—my fiancé, my supposed savior from the Brook legacy—was sprawled across silk sheets with a blonde straddling him. His lips were slick with her lipstick. His hand fisted in her hair like she was his prize.

He didn’t even stop when he saw me. Not right away. He had the audacity to smirk, like I’d caught him winning.

The champagne bottle hit the floor with a heavy crack, fizz hissing out like dying breath. My pulse roared in my ears.

I’d always been told I wasn’t the kind of woman who raged. The Brooks were the fighters, the killers, the men with bloody knuckles and ruined futures. I was supposed to be different. Polished. Saved.

But something inside me snapped.

“Wow,” I said, voice raw, breaking the thick air. “Couldn’t even wait until after the wedding, Robert?”

The blonde squealed, scrambling for the sheet, while Robert just leaned back, utterly unbothered, smugness oozing from every perfect pore.

“Lily,” he said smoothly, as though my name were a leash he thought he held. “Don’t be dramatic. You knew what this was.”

I laughed. A sharp, ugly sound. “What was this? You mean my escape plan? My entire life traded in for a ring, just so you could stick your d**k wherever you pleased?”

The blonde gasped. He silenced her with a snap of his fingers.

And then I did it. I yanked the engagement ring from my finger, that heavy diamond he’d flaunted like it was the cure to my tainted bloodline, and I hurled it straight at his chest. It smacked against his skin, hard enough to leave a mark.

“Keep it. Shove it. I don’t care. But don’t you ever think for a second you own me.”

That was the Brook fire. My father would have been proud—if he wasn’t already rotting in the ground for living by the same violence.

Robert’s expression cracked. The charming, polished mask slipped, revealing something darker, uglier. His lip curled.

“You’ll regret this,” he hissed. “Do you really think anyone else will have you, Lily? You’re a Brook. A cursed name. I was doing you a favor.”

The words cut deeper than I wanted them to. Because he wasn’t entirely wrong. People avoided the Brooks like a plague. We weren’t just feared—we were marked. My brother Ronan made sure of that.

But I didn’t flinch. I refused. “If being with you is a favor, I’d rather be damned.”

I didn’t wait for his response. I stormed out, every nerve in my body sparking with rage and adrenaline. My heels cracked against the marble floors, echoing like gunshots.

By the time I shoved open the front door, the night air slapped me in the face, cold and electric. I didn’t even realize tears were burning at the corners of my eyes until the wind stung them.

The city pulsed around me—neon, noise, the buzz of nightlife. My chest heaved, and for the first time in years, I didn’t feel fragile. I felt dangerous.

I walked fast, too fast, down the slick street, heart hammering. My hand still trembled from throwing the ring. I didn’t care where I was going. Anywhere but here.

But danger has a way of sniffing out broken women.

The first sign was the shout—two men staggering out of an alley, drunk or high, their eyes locking on me with the kind of hunger that made my stomach tighten.

“Hey, pretty,” one slurred, stepping into my path. His breath reeked of whiskey.

I tried to shove past, but the other one grabbed my wrist. My heart jolted.

Wrong move.

“I said—” The man never finished.

Suddenly, there was a roar of an engine. The growl of a motorcycle split through the night, vibrating through the ground beneath my feet.

And then he was there.

Jeremiah Veyne.

I hadn’t seen him in years, but the sight of him hit like a punch to the ribs. Broad shoulders in a leather jacket, tattoos crawling up his throat, dark hair falling across his sharp jaw. His eyes were shadowed steel, fixed on the man holding me.

Before I could even say his name, Jeremiah moved.

It wasn’t a fight. It was a m******e. Brutal, efficient, controlled chaos. He tore the man off me with a single strike, bone crunching under his fist. The other lunged, swinging, but Jeremiah dodged like he was born for violence, his boot slamming into the guy’s ribs with a sickening crack.

The alley filled with the sound of groans, broken teeth hitting pavement, the slap of knuckles against flesh. And I just stood there, frozen, watching him. Watching the way his body moved—power and rage fused into something magnetic.

I should have been horrified. Instead, heat licked down my spine, shameful and hot. My body betrayed me with every clenched fist he threw.

When the last man collapsed, groaning and bloodied, Jeremiah finally turned to me.

And those eyes—God, those eyes—pinned me where I stood.

My breath caught. My heart thundered. Every memory I’d buried clawed back to life.

He stepped closer, chest heaving from the fight, his voice low and rough.

“Lily.”

The sound of my name in his mouth nearly undid me.

It was the first time I’d heard it in years.

And it didn’t sound like a curse. It sounded like a claim.