The music throbbed like a heartbeat through the mansion walls, bass rattling glass and ribs alike. Champagne mist clung to the air, sweet and sticky as perfume. Someone shouted his name—no, not just someone, a hundred voices in drunken chorus—Gavin! Gavin! Gavin!
He forced a smile, the practiced kind that looked effortless on the jumbotron and in sneaker commercials. The emcee's voice boomed through the speakers, reciting numbers Gavin could've delivered in his sleep.
"Six-foot-three! Two hundred and ten pounds! Five-time Super Bowl champion! Five-time Super Bowl MVP! Six-time league MVP! Let's hear it for America's legend—Dallas Cowboys quarterback, Gavin King!"
The cheer rose again, deafening, but to him it was static. He'd heard the same intro so often it no longer stirred pride—only a kind of weary nausea, like being stuck in a looped highlight reel of his own life.
Confetti sprayed across the living room. A Victoria's Secret model wrapped herself around his neck, lips grazing his ear. He barely registered her name—Kayla? Kylie? Did it matter? They all smelled of hairspray and ambition.
Gavin raised a glass of Dom Pérignon, tilted it back, and let the bubbles burn down his throat. The burn was the only thing that still felt real.
Around him, bodies writhed on the polished floors—models in glittering heels, rookies from the team desperate to prove they could party with the gods, even a Hollywood actor or two pretending they knew the rules of football.
He'd won the biggest game in America again tonight. He should've felt untouchable. Instead, he just felt bored.
Wealth? He'd had it since his first contract.Women? A revolving door.Glory? The country carved his name into the Mount Rushmore of sports while he was still twenty-five.
And yet, all he wanted was quiet.
Across the room, Madison—a mountain of a man, two hundred kilos of lineman muscle—was doing shots off a model's stomach. Teammates howled. Madison grinned, beer foam dripping into his beard. The guy could block a tank, but even he needed to drown the terror of tomorrow in liquor tonight.
Gavin loosened his tie, tugged the collar open. Too hot. Too loud. Too much of everything.
He slipped away from the crowd, past the dancers grinding on marble counters, past the hallway lined with art no one noticed anymore. His shoes sank into thick Persian rugs as he escaped into the quieter wing of the mansion.
There, leaning against a wall with a half-smile, was Gigi Hadid. Nineteen, maybe twenty, fresh on the scene. Her eyes were wide, hungry—not just for him, but for the world he represented.
She bit her lip. "You always run from your own party?"
Gavin chuckled, low and humorless. "I like the part without the cameras."
Her laughter was light, rehearsed but sweet. She followed him as if she'd been waiting for this exact moment all night.
They disappeared into a guest suite, the door closing out the roar of the party.
The heavy oak door muffled the music to a distant vibration, like thunder rolling somewhere else. The suite smelled of leather and cologne, expensive and masculine, with a minibar tucked beside a king-sized bed.
Gigi flopped backward onto the mattress, her blond hair spilling like a magazine spread. She giggled, all teeth and youth, legs kicking off her heels. She looked so fresh it almost annoyed him.
"Your fans think you're untouchable," she said, propping herself on her elbows. "But here you are, hiding in a bedroom."
Gavin smirked, dropping into the leather armchair across from her. "Even gods need a break."
Her laugh came again, that pretty little sound that sounded good in interviews. He knew her type. The rising star. Hungry. Calculating. She wanted the right picture with the right man at the right time.
He thumbed open his phone, scrolling through his finance app. He did this after every conquest. He always paid—call it a "donation," if it made the accountants happier.
Nineteen years old, fresh on the runway. Career curve going up. Not yet tainted by Leo's notorious checklist. That alone made her stock climb.
Base price? Two hundred grand.Effort level? She was trying—laughing at his weak jokes, leaning in like he was the center of the solar system. Another fifty.Performance bonus? She'd given him lines about how she'd pay him if she could. Cute. Maybe another thirty.
He tapped the numbers into the calculator, lips quirking. Three hundred eighty thousand. Reasonable investment.
Across the room, Gigi rolled to her feet and padded toward the bathroom, humming. She swayed her hips like she knew he was watching.
The sound of the faucet. Then a retch.
"Ughhh—"
Gavin's brow furrowed. He lowered the phone. The retching turned violent, wet and sharp.
"Don't puke on my time, sweetheart," he muttered.
Another gag. The echo of liquid splattering tile. Then a choked gasp, guttural, too raw for a hangover.
Gavin grimaced, leaning forward. "Come on, at least hit the toilet—"
Then he froze.
The sound wasn't just vomit. It was thick. Wet. And… wrong.
A spray. A splash. Red. Too much red.
Wine? Tomatoes? No—he knew that copper smell, even through the bathroom door.
Blood.
The first thud shook the doorframe.
Gavin shot to his feet. "Gigi?"
No answer. Just another thud—wet and sharp—followed by a hiss of air through her teeth, the sound of someone trying to tear their own throat open.
He took one cautious step toward the bathroom. The frosted glass wall shimmered under soft light, blurred shapes twisting behind it.
Another slam. A crimson smear appeared, running like paint down the pane.
"Jesus Christ…"
Gigi's silhouette jerked against the glass. Once. Twice. Each time harder, until the pane trembled in its frame. The blurred outline of her head snapped forward and back, forward and back, like she wasn't in control of her own body.
The blood spread wider with every impact, dripping down to the marble floor.
For a moment, Gavin's brain refused to process. He'd seen concussions on the field, men knocked senseless, bodies seizing. This was different. This was deliberate. Mechanical.
"Cut it out!" His voice cracked against the door. "You're gonna kill yourself!"
Another smash. A muffled crack of bone. Something snapped at the bridge of her nose—he could hear it.
The silhouette lifted its head. For one terrible instant, he caught her face pressed flat against the glass. Nose bent sideways, eyes bulging, mouth stretching wider than he thought possible. A soundless scream.
Then the pounding resumed. Faster. Harder.
Thudthudthudthud!
The glass quivered. Spiderweb cracks began to bloom across the surface.
From beyond the walls of the mansion came a different sound—one that made Gavin's stomach drop.
A scream. Not playful. Not drunken. A raw, ragged scream that tore through the night air.
He stumbled toward the window, yanking the curtain aside. Outside, by the pool, shadows thrashed in the half-light. Two men in tuxedos struggled, one dragging the other down into the water. Limbs flailed, splashes turned the pool dark, and then—silence, save for the ripple of blood dispersing under the lamps.
"Shit…"
Another crash behind him. He spun.
Gigi's body slammed against the glass again. Cracks widened. Blood smeared into grotesque patterns, handprints streaking as if she wanted to claw her way out.
Gavin backed away, pulse hammering. His eyes flicked to the fireplace. Above it, mounted like decoration, gleamed a pair of ceremonial blades. Polished. Heavy.
Art, not weapons. But better than nothing.
Another slam. The cracks spidered wider, a jagged line crawling toward the frame.
Gavin's throat went dry. For the first time in years, the man called untouchable felt a knot of panic twist in his chest.
He lunged for the fireplace. His fingers curled around the hilt of the larger blade—a broad, military-style knife with a serrated spine, mounted for show. Dust coated the leather grip, but the edge gleamed like it had been polished that morning.
He ripped it off the wall mount, the metal cold and unfamiliar in his hand. Not a football. Not a trophy. Something older. Primal.
Another bang!
The glass bowed inward, splinters flaking off the frame. Gigi's face loomed behind the spiderweb cracks, streaked in blood, eyes rolled white until only threads of blue showed in the corners. Her jaw hung crooked, teeth slicked red.
"Stop it!" Gavin barked, voice low, commanding—the way he called plays over roaring stadiums. "Step back, Gigi! I mean it!"
Her head snapped sideways. A twitch. A grotesque crack of bone. Then she slammed herself forward again, harder.
CRRRAK!
The pane split down the middle. A hairline fracture raced across, threatening to shatter.
Gavin raised the knife. His breath was shallow, ragged, but his arms stayed steady, like he was in the pocket under a blitz.
She pounded again. Blood fanned out, droplets spraying through the cracks. The bathroom door groaned on its hinges.
Something primal screamed in his chest: this isn't a girl anymore.
Outside, another scream tore through the air. Then gunshots. Rapid. Popping like fireworks, but sharper, closer. The party wasn't just falling apart—it was a battlefield now.
"Come on then," Gavin muttered, teeth grinding.
The final slam came like a car crash.
The glass burst inward, shards exploding across the suite like shrapnel. Gigi tumbled through in a frenzy of blood and broken limbs, shrieking without sound, mouth stretched wider than human.
She came at him in a blur of hair and blood. Shards of glass clung to her skin like glitter, catching the lamplight as she lunged.
Gavin swung the knife. Not with grace. Not with training. Just raw instinct. The blade carved through her shoulder, but she didn't slow. Her hands clamped on his chest, fingers digging like claws, teeth snapping for his throat.
He stumbled back, slammed against the minibar, bottles toppling and shattering around them. Whiskey fumes mixed with iron-rich blood in the air.
"Get off me!"
He jammed his forearm under her chin, straining. Her face was unrecognizable now, pulp where a nose had been, eyes bulging, jaw grinding with inhuman strength. She didn't look like Gigi anymore. She didn't look human at all.
She shrieked, spittle hot against his cheek.
Adrenaline burned through him. For a split second, it was like being in the pocket with four defensive ends crashing down. No room. No time. Either make the throw or die.
He drove the knife upward.
The serrated edge split her neck, jammed under the jaw, then tore through cartilage and bone with a sickening rip. Warm blood gushed over his hand, coating his arm to the elbow.
Gigi's body convulsed, jerking like a puppet with its strings cut. Then, with one brutal shove, he forced the blade across, severing the last tendons. Her head sagged loose, connected only by a flap of skin, before it slid off entirely and hit the floor with a hollow thunk.
The body twitched once. Twice. Then collapsed in a heap of glass and silk.
Gavin staggered back, chest heaving. His stomach rolled, bile clawing up his throat. He bent over and vomited, splattering the shards at his feet.
His ears rang. His hands shook. He had killed men before on the field—ruined careers with bone-crushing hits—but this wasn't a game. This wasn't football. This was something else entirely.
From outside came the staccato of automatic gunfire. Screams. Glass breaking. A man shouted, high-pitched with panic, then was cut short in a wet gargle.
The bass from the speakers had stopped. The music was gone.
All that remained was chaos.
Gavin wiped his mouth with the back of his blood-soaked hand, staring at the twitching corpse at his feet.
And then it hit him.
This wasn't one sick girl. This wasn't a freak accident.
It was happening everywhere.