"Stay out of this, Kat." Jonah's voice turns ugly. "The adults are talking."
"Don't speak to her like that." My control is slipping. I can feel the rage building in my chest, pressing against my ribs, demanding release. "She's not yours to dismiss." I am trying really fucking hard not to show her how dark my soul really is. Katriana deserves the best of me.
"She's not yours either." Jonah steps closer, his face inches from mine. "No matter how many times you fuck her, no matter how many pretty things you buy her, she'll always remember which Moses had her first. Who taught her what she knows."
“Jonah, I never slept with you. Stop baiting your brother.”
"You didn't teach her anything except how to survive a man who didn't deserve her."
Jonah's fist swings toward my face.
I catch it easily, his knuckles stopping an inch from my jaw. His eyes widen with surprise. He's always been slower than me,softer than me, and he seems to have forgotten that fact in his fury.
I twist his arm behind his back and force him to his knees.
"Listen carefully." My voice is quiet, controlled, but beneath it simmers a violence I'm barely containing. "Katriana is mine. If you go near her, speak to her, breathe in her direction, I will end you. Brother or not."
I release him. He staggers to his feet, his face red with humiliation and rage.
Movement catches my eye. Katriana is backing toward the door, her hand reaching for the handle. Smart girl. Get out while you can. Let me handle this.
But Jonah sees her too.
And everything happens very fast.
His hand goes to his waistband. Metal glints under the fluorescent lights. A gun, small and black, appears in his grip like it was always there, waiting for this moment.
He swings it toward Katriana.
"Don't think about touching that door handle, bitch."
The word hits me like a physical blow. The world narrows to a single point of focus: the barrel of that gun aimed at the woman I love.
Yes. Love. I know it now with a certainty that burns through every other thought in my head. I love her, and my brother is pointing a weapon at her chest, and if he so much as twitches his finger toward that trigger, I will tear him apart with my bare hands.
"Jonah." My voice comes out calm, deadly, completely at odds with the inferno raging inside me. "Put the gun down."
"No." His hand is shaking, but his aim stays fixed on Katriana. She's frozen by the door, her eyes wide behind her glasses, her breath coming in short, panicked bursts. "No, I don't think I will. For once in my life, I'm the one holding the power."
"You don't want to do this."
"Don't tell me what I want!" Spittle flies from his lips. "You've been telling me what I want my whole life. What I should think, how I should act, who I should be. The perfect brother, always watching, always judging, always so fucking disappointed."
"Jonah." Katriana's voice trembles, but she forces the words out despite her fear.
Pride swells in my chest.
"Please. Put it down. Whatever happened between us, whatever you think I did wrong, I don't deserve this."
"You don't deserve this?" He laughs, wild and broken. "I gave you everything. I tried to make you happy and be whatever imagine you had in your head of the perfect boyfriend. And you gave me nothing. Nothing! You wouldn't even let me touch you. All I wanted to do was…"
His words trail off. He nearly let his truth slip. All he wanted to do was break her and use her for entertainment amongst his friends. The truth is Katriana was one in many I watched him break. I didn’t do anything for the others because I was too deep into my own problems. But I got lucky with Katriana. She came back into my life by fate or sheer luck and I am not about to ruin my second chance. I will not let anything happen to her.
"I didn't want to." Her chin lifts despite her fear. "Because my body belongs to me, not to whoever demands it."
"Your body belongs to my brother now, apparently." Jonah's gun hand steadies, his finger moving toward the trigger. "Maybe I should take what I never got. Maybe I should show Drake what it feels like to have something precious ripped away."
I move.
