Page 102 of Billionaire’s Heartbreak

For a moment, none of us spoke. Kai chewed slowly, then his eyes moved between Lincoln and me. His expression changed.

“What happened?”

I couldn't answer. Not yet. Because saying it again would make it real.

17

Kai

* * *

Dannie gave me a quick tour of the house after we arrived.

It was a large old house, the kind that seemed to have been built to survive generations rather than simply provide somewhere to live. Grandma had decorated almost every corner with things she loved.

“She loves this place,” he said.

I could tell. There was something almost comforting about the house. It didn't feel like the cold, heavily guarded spaces I'd grown accustomed to. It felt lived in. Loved. Like people had actually grown old here.

Then he led me upstairs and opened the door to a guest room. “You can sleep here.”

I stepped inside, then stopped.

“I don't know if you'll believe me,” Dannie continued, “but I had you in mind when we decorated this room.” He gave me a small smile. “My best friend.”

I forced a smile back.

It was a strange thing to realise. My childhood best friend had turned out to be my half brother. It should have been a blessing. And it was. Except there was still one thing standing between us.

June.

If it hadn't been for Dannie, I never would have agreed to cut her out of my life. I had spent years trying to forget her, trying to convince myself that what I felt for her belonged to another lifetime.

Then, just when I thought I had finally managed to move on, he had dragged me back into his life and given me the cruelest news imaginable.

We were brothers.

Suddenly, so many things made sense. The anger I had carried without understanding. The fire I had spent my entire life trying to suppress. The darkness I had always been afraid would consume me if I ever stopped keeping it under control.

Maybe it had been there all along, written into my blood. The blood of a triad.

Violence. Power. Control. Things I had spent most of my life trying to convince myself I didn't need. And yet they had always come so naturally to me.

Maybe that was the part of myself I had been fighting all these years. Not because I was destined to become a monster, but because I knew exactly how easy it would be to become one.

I looked around the room again. Dannie hadn't been lying. This room was exactly my taste. The clean lines. The dark wood. The understated furniture. Even the lighting. It was almost unsettling. It felt as though we had somehow shared the same interior designer without knowing it.

The rest of the house had Grandma's personality written all over it—warm, traditional, filled with memories. This room felt different. It felt like mine.

I walked toward the large mirror beside the wardrobe. The frame was gold, old-fashioned and slightly extravagant.

I stared at my reflection, then frowned.

Dannie and I really did look alike. I had known that intellectually. But seeing us standing in the same house, me wearing his clothes, with the same dark eyes and similar features… it was different.

Dannie had given me something I didn't know I wanted.

A room. A place. A brother.