Her shoulders dropped, and for a second, it looked like she felt that, but she still didn’t move.
“I’m not even fucked up about everything that happened,” I continued. “We can start over. I’m here now.”
She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, that same look was still there.
“I can’t,” she said again.
Before I could ask her what the hell she meant by that, a voice came from deeper inside the house.
“Harlow, baby. Is everything alright?”
Everything in me went still for a second because that voice was familiar.
My brows pulled together while I pushed the door open wider, not giving Harlow a chance to stop me this time, and stepped inside.
“What the fuck…” I muttered under my breath as my eyes landed on him.
My younger brother, Bishop, stood there in nothing but his fucking drawers, his hair messy like he had just rolled out of bed. The second our eyes locked, that brief look of confusion on his face faded into something else real quick. It was something that told me he already knew exactly what the fuck this was and what the fuck it looked like.
For a second, I just stared at him. It felt like everything in my head slowed down enough for me to really take it in.
Bishop had always been the one I couldn’t move comfortably with, even growing up. We had an older brother, but me and Bishop were the ones who always clashed, always circling each other like it had to be a winner and a loser between us. It never mattered what it was, whether it wasattention, girls, money, respect, or just being seen as the one who stood out more, it always turned into competition with him, and neither of us ever backed down from it.
Now, this muthafucka was standing here… in this house… my house… the one I bought for me and Harlow.
I ain’t gonna lie… I fucking snapped.
I closed the distance between us before he could even move, grabbing him by his throat and slamming him into the wall hard enough to shake all the frames behind him. My grip tightened, cutting his air off as his eyes started bulging out his head. He tried to fight back like we were kids again, reaching up and grabbing at my hair, trying to yank me off him, but I was too locked in. My fist cracked across his face before he could even get set, then again, not giving him space to recover while he struggled under me.
“You out your fucking mind, muthafucka?” I growled, my voice low and mean while I hit him again, feeling myself lose all control.
He tried to reach for my eyes, but I caught his wrist clean and twisted it just enough to throw him off balance before I lifted him and slammed his body straight down on the floor. The impact knocked the air clean out of him. I dropped with him, straddling his chest like it was nothing. My weight planted while he tried to buck me off, still grabbing and swinging like he could get control, but I stayed on his bitch ass, driving my fist straight into his face and feeling his nose break under my knuckles the second it connected.
I hit him again right after, not letting him breathe or think while keeping that pressure on him the way I was trained to do, breaking him down piece by piece while he lay there, trying to fight back with nothing behind it.
“Kelli! Oh, my God! Stop!” Harlow screamed behind me, but her voice barely broke through the noise in my head.
I reached in my pocket and pulled my hunting knife out without even thinking about it, pressing the tip into his throat while he lay under me, his chest jumping while he tried to catch his breath. My hand stayed still, applying just enough pressure for the blade to break his skin. A thin line of blood slid down the edge while I looked down at him.
“Is you cool, muthafucka?” I shouted, my voice deadly. “You think this shit sweet?”
He didn’t answer but just lay there choking on his breath and blood. His eyes were wide like it was finally clicking for him.
“In my fucking house?” I added, pressing the blade in just a little deeper, ready to really poke this bitch.
His chest rose and fell fast, and for the first time since I saw him, he looked like he understood exactly how far this could go.
“Kelli—” Harlow tried again, her hands grabbing at my arm, trying to pull me off him.
That’s what made me pause…
All of a sudden, everything started lining up in my head at the same time, from Harlow ghosting me to the ignored calls to the way she looked when she opened that door, and it hit me without nobody having to say it out loud. I felt it settle heavy in my chest while I pulled the knife back slowly and pushed myself up off my brother, standing there trying to breathe through something I couldn’t even explain.
My brother stayed laid out on the floor, breathing hard, his face already swelling and unrecognizable, but I wasn’t even looking at him no more because my attention shifted to Harlow. Standing here, it all hit me at once how six years with her meant nothing in this moment, and how the baby we were supposed to have was gone, and how my own brother ended up in the middle of something that was supposed to be mine.
I could feel my heart bleeding, but I wasn’t about to let it come out the way it wanted to.
I just looked at this bitch Harlow for a second longer, letting everything I wasn’t saying sit right there between us.
