Victor stopped making sounds several punches ago. His body just absorbs the impacts now, limp and unresisting.
"Drake." I find my voice somehow, push the word past the tightness in my throat. "Drake, stop. He's done."
Drake's fist freezes mid-swing. He looks down at the ruin beneath him, chest heaving, knuckles split and bleeding. Then he looks at me.
The rage drains from his face. What replaces it is something softer, something broken, something that makes my heart crack open in my chest.
He stands and strips off his ruined jacket, crossing to me with hands that tremble as they work the hanging ropes on my wrists. The moment I am free, the jacket settles around my shoulders, warm with his body heat, covering me with a tenderness that brings tears to my eyes.
"You came." The words come out as a whisper.
"I will always come for you." His voice breaks on the promise. "Always, Katriana. No matter what it costs me."
He pulls me into his arms, and I collapse against his chest with a sob I cannot contain. The tears come then, hot and unstoppable, pouring out all the fear and shame and desperate hope I have been holding back since I woke in this nightmare.
Kon moves past us to free my mother and sister. I hear Gemma's cries, my mother's broken thanks, but I cannot look away from Drake's face. From the love I see there, raw and unguarded and absolutely certain.
"I thought you were dead." I choke the words against his chest. "Victor said Jonah betrayed you. Said you walked into a trap."
"I did." His arms tighten around me. "But I walked out again. Because you needed me."
"Jonah..."
"Alive. For now." A muscle ticks in his jaw. "I have plans for my brother that require him breathing."
Behind us, Victor stirs. A wet, gurgling sound that might be an attempt at speech. Drake's head turns toward the noise, and I see the violence flood back into his expression.
"Kon." The name is a command.
The massive Russian appears at Drake's side, his ice-colored eyes taking in the scene with grim satisfaction.
"Make sure he doesn't die before I'm ready." Drake's voice carries no emotion. "I want him conscious when I finish this."
Kon nods and moves toward Victor's crumpled form.
Drake turns back to me, his hands cupping my face with infinite gentleness despite the blood still coating his knuckles.
"I need to tell you something." His voice is rough, urgent. "Something I should have told you before any of this happened."
"Drake, we can talk later. You're hurt, I need to check on my family, we need to get out of here."
"No." He shakes his head. "I've put this off too long already. You deserve to know the truth."
I go still in his arms. The truth. The secret I have seen lurking behind his eyes for weeks. The confession he has been avoiding every night we fell asleep tangled together.
"I've wanted you for three years." The words pour out of him like water through a broken dam. "Since the first moment Jonah brought you to a family dinner. I watched you with my brother, watched him treat you like property instead of treasure, and I wanted you every single day you were with him."
My breath catches.
"I claimed your wish because I couldn't let anyone else have you." His thumbs stroke across my cheekbones, wiping away tears I did not realize were still falling. "It wasn’t because I needed an heir or the promise I made to my mother. I wanted you for three years, Katriana. Three years of watching from a distance while my brother treated you like something disposable. I told myself you weren't mine to save. I somehow convinced myself that stepping in would only make things worse. And after he discarded you, I stayed away. I convinced myself once again that any woman who survived his cruelty would want nothing to do with another man who carried the Moses name." His voice roughens. "But when you dropped that envelope in my box, I took it before any of my brothers could reach for it. I had been waiting for any excuse to make you mine, and I did."
The confession doesn’t trigger the emotions in me I think Drake expects. “Do you hear what you’re telling me?"
“Yes. You suffered because of me and I did nothing.”
I take his battered face in my hands and kiss his lips gently. “You were not responsible for me back then, Drake. You respected boundaries. Sure, I would have loved to have had a friend on my side, but you can’t take your brother’s sins on your shoulders or my actions to stay with him for as long as I did as your burden.”
The absolute knowledge that this man walked through fire to save me — and would do it again tomorrow without hesitation — swells my heart with love.
