And in that moment, with death breathing down my neck and Khai balanced on the edge of losing everything,
I know.
If he moves too soon, I die.
And if he doesn’t…
Something inside him will.
Khai looks towards his father again, changing the course of the conversation.
“You killed him, Father,” Khai snarls, his control finally fracturing. His voice rises, raw and unrestrained. “You killed Liam. He was good, and you destroyed him. Then you erased him like he never existed.” His jaw tightens. “Why?”
His father’s grip on me tightens as he jerks his head up, fury igniting his features. “It was supposed to beyou!” he roars, shoving the gun away from my temple and pointing it straight at Khai instead. His arm trembles with the force of it, even as he keeps me locked against him, my body pinned and helpless.
“You were always the problem,” he spits, venom dripping from every word. “Unpredictable. Uncontrolled.” His voice cracks as he repeats it, softer now, more unhinged. “It was supposed to be you.”
Somethingflashes through Khai’s eyes, pain, sharp and devastating, before his composure snaps back into place like armour reforged. He inhales once, deeply, and when he speaks again his voice is steady.
“Let her go, Father.” He takes a single step forward, slow and deliberate, arms spreading at his sides in surrender. “If you want me dead, I’m here. Take me.”
He doesn’t look away from me.
“Just let her go.”
A sob tears free from my chest. Tears spill hot and fast, my vision blurring as the room tilts. I shake my head frantically against the arm holding me.
“Khai, no,” I force out, my voice breaking. “Please… no.”
My heart feels like it’s tearing itself apart as the truth claws its way free, the one I’ve been too afraid to name until now.
“Khai,” I whisper, desperate and raw. “I love you.”
The words fall from my lips with terrifying ease, natural, inevitable, and for the first time, I don’t fight them.
Even if it’s the last thing I ever say.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Khai
“I love you.”
The words leave her like a final prayer, thin, breathless, as if she’s already halfway gone and this is all she has left to anchor herself to the world.
They hit me square in the chest.
Not like comfort. Like a bullet.
My eyes snap back to her. To the tears carving tracks down her face. To the tremor in her body as she fights to stay upright in my father’s hold. And something inside me breaks in a way I can’t repair, because I know, Iknow, this ends with blood.
One of us won’t walk out of here.
My father laughs.
It’s quiet at first, almost amused, like he’s witnessing something entertaining instead of a life being held hostage. The barrel presses back into her temple, firm, possessive, and she flinches, a small, helpless sound caught in her throat.
I want to be there.
