Chapter 24 Kaylor
KAYLOR
Imight not get another opportunity like this.
There weren’t many where Kreed had his guard down.
He fell fast and hard into sleep, dropping deeper than I’d ever witnessed him go, shoulders finally slack against the pillows, jaw relaxed for the first time in days, tension melting away by exhaustion and blood loss.
It was so rare to see him truly at rest.
I told myself I’d take just one more minute.
One more stolen handful of peace before the rest of reality inevitably crawled back into my life, but peace didn’t last long in the Corvo house.
I’d learned that lesson quickly. I hadn’t spoken more than a few words to Donovan since I arrived back at his house, but despite loathing the thought of being in his presence, I had to do this.
Not for just myself, but for Kreed. Next time, he might not get so lucky, and the possibility of losing him was unfathomable.
I pushed myself up from the bed and slipped out of the room but not before glancing one last time over my shoulder to make sure Kreed hadn’t moved.
Reluctantly, I padded down the long hallway.
The house was a sleepwalker’s maze at this hour, soft light leaking from under closed doors.
The storm outside still shook and howled against the windows, but the patter of rain was softening.
My chest thudded so hard I could feel my pulse in my throat as I reached the first floor.
I swallowed when I reached Donovan’s study.
The door was cracked. Cigar smoke curled out through the opening, the smell overwhelmingly sentimental. If I closed my eyes, I might be able to delude myself into thinking it was my father sitting behind the door instead of the man who fucked my life up.
I chewed on my lip, my heart in my throat. Taking a deep breath, I lifted my hand. I can do this. I have to do this.
Before I could knock, Donovan’s deep, velvety voice filtered from inside his study. “Come in.”
I pushed at the door.
Donovan sat enthroned behind his massive mahogany desk, one shirt cuff unbuttoned and rolled to reveal a forearm, the gold of his rings catching and reflecting the dimmed lamplight.
Papers were arranged in obsessively neat stacks across the desk’s surface.
A single crystal glass of liquor was within easy reach of his right hand.
I should have turned immediately and run the other direction, back to the safety of Kreed’s room. Instead, I stepped fully inside, pulling my shoulders back and trying desperately to fold my face into a calm, determined expression rather than terrified.
“I’ve been wondering when you would seek me out. Take a seat.” He gestured to the chairs in front of his desk. “It’s past time you and I talked.”
I remained standing for two reasons. One, I wanted to be looking down at him. And two, I wanted a quick escape where I didn’t have to scramble around furniture. “I didn’t come here to talk about my parents or the past.”
He took a long, deliberately lazy pull from his cigar and let the smoke hang suspended between us like a curtain.
“Perhaps it’s best left buried. Ancient history.
” He tilted his head fractionally. “What do you need, Miss Steele? You wouldn’t be standing in my study at this hour if it wasn’t critically important. ”
My palms were damp with nervous sweat, and I wished I’d thought to throw something on over the shorts and thin T-shirt I wore.
Did I owe him a thank you for his part in rescuing me?
Fuck it. He didn’t deserve my gratitude.
Not after what he did to my parents. I wanted to walk out of this room and pretend I never strolled in, but it wouldn’t solve my problems. “It’s true.
I want your help.” He owed me that much.
Intrigue lifted his brows. “Does my son know you’re here?”
“Which one?” I tried to play na?ve, but I wasn’t fooling anyone, let alone Donovan Corvo.
“The one you’re in love with. I’m assuming something must have happened for you to find the courage to ask me for help, especially because you know it won’t come free.”
He’s such an arrogant prick. “To answer your question, no, Kreed doesn’t know. And something did happen. He was hurt tonight and nearly could have been killed.”
Donovan’s eyes darkened, but it was the singular change in him. His features and posture all remained unmoved. I’d expected something with more concern, but I should have known better. Donovan didn’t freely give emotion. “What is it you want?”
“I think you know, but for the sake of being transparent so there isn’t any misunderstanding, I want Rusty gone. Permanently. I don’t want to ever see his face again. I don’t want to have to worry about looking over my shoulder. Do you understand what I’m asking?”
For a beat, he let the cigar rest motionless in his fingers, smoke spiraling upward. “You want him dead,” he said, making it conversational, as if I’d just asked him to fetch me a coat from the closet.
My fingers gripped the back of the chair in front of me. “Yes. I don’t want to live with this fear anymore. I can’t do it.”
He leaned back in his leather chair, the movement making it creak softly in the quiet room, and regarded me with the cool assessment of a man deciding the precise worth of a high-stakes gamble. “Consider it done,” he said at last.
Relief flushed hot through my chest, then immediately turned ice-cold as reality caught up.
I couldn’t let myself relax. Not yet. This was the part of the negotiation I was dreading.
“And the price?” What was I willing to offer him?
“Money? You know how much my parents left me. Name it. You can deduct it from my inheritance at eighteen as you promised.”
His mouth curved. Not a smile, not exactly, but the suggestion of one. “So, my son does share details with you. And what if my price is more than you can pay?”
I swallowed. “Why don’t you let me decide just how steep of a deal I want to make with the devil.”
“If I do this for you,” he began, “your involvement with my son ends completely. You graduate from high school quietly without drama. I’ll arrange for you to finish your remaining classes remotely so there’s no scene.
I’ll place you in a furnished apartment in whichever city you choose, and I’ll personally grease every wheel to get you into the university of your choice.
” He paused, letting it sink in. “A clean cut. You leave Elmwood, and you don’t come back. Ever.”
I could taste it; exile wrapped in gold paper and tied with ribbon. “You mean you’ll buy me out of my own life.”
“Do we have a deal?”
I sucked in a breath. Of all the payments Donovan could have asked for, forbidding me to see Kreed hadn’t even made the list. “Why? What does it matter to you whether Kreed and I date?”
“It’s bad for business,” he said, nonchalantly.
“You care more about your empire than you do your son,” I replied, disgusted but not surprised.
“They’re intertwined.”
This was a bad fucking idea. Could I do what Donovan asked? Could I end things with Kreed? Could I resist the urge to kiss him, to be in his arms, to sleep with him, to be near him?
“It’s simply the way the world works, Kaylor. Transactions and consequences.” He leaned forward slightly.
For a second, I let myself imagine what leaving would actually look like in practice: a single suitcase packed with essentials, a one-way plane ticket clutched in my hand, unfamiliar streets with no painful history to trip over.
I imagined Kreed’s face when he learned I left, how his jaw would set, how fury might pour from him.
I imagined the physical distance between us stretching and hardening into something I might never be able to cross again, a gulf too wide to bridge.
It wouldn’t be just Kreed I would lose. My friends. The life I had here. The last ties to my parents. Donovan was asking me to give it all up.
But what Donovan didn’t factor in was how strong Kreed’s feelings were for me. He wouldn’t just let me disappear. Kreed would track me down. He wouldn’t stop looking until he found me, no matter how much his father paid.
“You want me gone so you can maintain complete control over him,” I said, softer now, the accusation laid bare and useless in the dim light.
“I want my sons involved in their legacy,” Donovan acknowledged simply, no shame in the admission. “I didn’t spend my life hustling and building what I have for them to throw it away. They are as much a part of the crew as I am.”
“Regardless of whether it is what they want?” I tossed back at him.
“They are young and still have much to learn.”
It should have been easy to say no. To declare I’d rather burn his whole fucking empire to the ground than bargain away my future, that I’d find another way.
But I thought of Kreed half-conscious on his bed, breathing ragged, skin too pale, bandaged and bleeding because of me.
I thought of nights like the one we’d just shared when he had a hand on my waist and the world felt like it could shrink to something small and safe for just a breath.
I thought of Kenny and the empty, screaming hole her kidnapping had left.
The auction house. The way my hands still shook sometimes when I imagined what would have happened if Kreed had been even one second later.
I closed my eyes and let the image of him sleeping peacefully for once steady my resolve. “If you do this,” I said slowly. “I’ll go. I’ll leave Elmwood. I’ll graduate somewhere else. I won’t be in his life anymore.”
Donovan’s fingers drummed once against the desktop, a single decisive tap. “You don’t get to keep both your heart and your life. Not in this world.”
I heard a clock ticking somewhere in the house, counting down my remaining time. My throat clicked when I swallowed. “We have a deal,” I agreed, bartering away my heart and shattering all in the same breath. “But I need to see it finished. I won’t leave until I have visual confirmation he’s dead.”