She doesn't resist. Doesn't stiffen. She melts against me, her face pressed to my chest, her fingers curling into the blood-stained fabric of my shirt.
"You're okay." I murmur the words into her hair, breathing in the vanilla and cotton scent of her, letting it wash away the last of the killing rage. "You're safe. I've got you."
"I know." Her voice is muffled against my chest. "I knew I would be okay. The moment he raised that gun, I knew."
The trust in those words breaks something open inside me.
"Come on." I guide her toward the door, keeping her face turned away from the blood on the floor. "We're done here for today."
Sixteen
Drake
The rest of the afternoon passes in a blur. Phone calls. Cleanup. The weight of what happened pressing down on my shoulders with every passing hour.
Fuck.
I beat my brother and then disowned him.
The thought circles through my mind as I pace my office, as I bark orders at underlings who flinch at the blood still staining my shirt, as I watch Katriana through the glass walls where she sits curled on the leather sofa with a cup of tea someone brought her.
She hasn't said much since we left the conference room. Just watches me with those brown eyes, tracking my movements, processing everything she witnessed.
I'm terrified.
Not of Jonah and not of the fallout. Not even the violence that still simmers in my blood scares me. I’ve lived with problems dayin and out all my life. The adrenaline eventually leaves and I sort out the issues. I have full control over every aspect of my life.
Until her.
I'm terrified that she's finally seen what I really am.
A killer. A monster. The kind of man who would choke his own brother to death. The reason doesn’t matter. She’s seen I’m the kind of man whose first instinct is always violence, always destruction, always blood.
She's going to leave and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
The certainty settles in my gut like a thousand pound lead weight as I watch her through the glass walls of my office. She sits curled on the leather sofa, tea untouched, her eyes distant with thoughts I wish I could read.
I beat my brother half to death in front of her. Called him a piece of shit. Wrapped my hand around his throat and squeezed until his eyes bulged.
How could she want me after that?
By the time we return to the penthouse that evening, the sun has set and I've worked myself into a state of quiet desperation. Dinner is silent. Katriana picks at her food, lost in thought. I can't eat at all.
She retreats to her room after we finish, murmuring something about needing time. I don't argue. Just watch her disappear through the connecting door and tell myself it's better this way.
I pour myself a whiskey and stand at the windows, staring at Chicago without seeing it.
He's not worth it, she said. And she's right. Jonah isn't worth the blood on my hands or the ache in my ribs or the guilt churning in my stomach.
But the guilt is there anyway. Not for the beating. For the boy I raised who became the man I had to destroy.
The darkness in this city turns people if they allow it. Jonah is just one of many who drank the poison and let it rot him from the inside out. I tried to protect him from that darkness. Tried to give him every opportunity to choose a different path.
He chose wrong. That's on him.
But it's also on me. For not seeing it sooner. For hoping that blood meant something when all the evidence pointed to the contrary.
I finish my whiskey and pour another. The burn does nothing to quiet the thoughts spiraling through my head.
