The barrel doesn’t waver.
Hesays nothing at first. Just stands there, watching me with eyes blazing, rage simmering beneath a lifetime of control. Then he inhales slowly, deliberately, as if reminding himself who he is. What he owns.
“Your time belongs to me,” he says at last, voice tight with authority. “Your life belongs to me. Your obedience belongs to me.”
Each word lands like a brand.
“You agreed to that,” he continues, teeth clenched, “the moment you let your brother do as he pleased.”
The silence that follows is thick, suffocating, charged with blood, legacy, and the unspoken truth that neither of us is willing to back down.
There’s a tremor in my hand. Subtle. Controlled. He doesn’t notice it, but I do.
He brought Liam into this. Dragged his name into the room like a weapon, as if my brother’s weakness was my failing. As if I hadn’t carried the weight of that loss alone. As if I hadn’t already paid for it in ways that still wake me at night.
I don’t answer him. I can’t. The rage is too loud, too consuming, drowning out reason until all I want, all Ineed, is to end him. Right here.
The door bursts open behind me.
I barely have time to turn before his men are on me. I duck a punch, feel the rush of air where a fist should’ve landed, and drive my own into one of them. Bone meets bone. Pain flares. I try to fight them both at once, block, strike, breathe, but I was already unbalanced, already burning from the inside out.
They overwhelm me quickly.
Fists slam into my ribs, my jaw, my back. I’m driven to the floor, the impact knocking the air from my lungs. Boots follow, kicks landing hard and relentless as the room begins to blur at the edges.
Then everything slows.
Through the haze, polished black shoes step into my line of sight. My father crouches down, resting his hands on his knees like this is nothing more than a lesson long overdue. He grips my chin and forces my head up, making sure I’m looking at him when he speaks.
“Let this be a reminder, boy,” he murmurs, voice low and lethal. “You do as I say. When I say it. That is final.”
He releases me and stands, already done with me. He walks out without another glance, his men following in his wake, the door closing behind them with a hollow finality.
I roll onto my back with a groan, pain blooming everywhere at once. Blood trickles from my split lip, from the cut above my eyebrow. I swipe my mouth with the back of my hand and stare at my knuckles, tattooed, bruised, stained red.
My body moves before my mind can catch up.
Because there is only one place I want to be now. Only one person who can quiet the chaos inside me.
And for the first time tonight, the need isn’t about control.
It’s about survival.
Chapter Eleven
Emmy
I didn’t go home after the café. Not afterthat, not after what was supposed to be a date.
Instead, I walked back through the hospital car park, climbed into my car, and drove straight to Tate’s. I needed somewhere to unload, somewhere safe enough to say the things I didn’t yet understand myself.
Because the entire time I sat across from Ryan, trying to be present, trying to enjoy the easy conversation and the normalcy of it all, my thoughts kept betraying me. They drifted, no, theygravitated, back to Khai.
His intense gaze.
His hands on my body.
The way his voice drops when he whispers, sending shivers down my spine like a promise and a threat all at once.
