49. Brody
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“Breaking—Richard Voss, high-profile local attorney and business consultant, arrested at his downtown office in a massive pre-dawn raid. Sources cite ongoing investigation into official corruption, organized crime ties, human trafficking, witness suppression…”
The words appear across the screen, white on black. I watch it land, see the look in Richard’s eyes as they perp walk him out of the building. Hands cuffed, suit rumpled. No smile. Just that old, dead look. The one he used to wear when I disappointed him.
Mob of reporters surround him. Cameras everywhere. Someone calls out his name, and for the first time, he flinches.
I pour myself a glass of water, and hand one to Lola. She takes it, hand shaking, barely spilling a drop.
“The hell did you do?” she asks.
I sit down across from her. My knuckles start to bleed again, split along the scab. I lick it clean. “Ended it.”
The phone on the counter rings, Sophie’s number, blowing up the lockscreen. Eight missed calls. Two voicemails. I don’t answer. Not yet. Let her wonder.
“Connections to NorthLine—possible ties to national criminal syndicates—subject of ongoing federal investigation. Evidence of Marcus Bloom being corrupt, he is nowhere to be found…”
I watch the city swallow it, piece by piece. The phone keeps buzzing, frantic now. Sophie’s crying in her voicemail, voice breaking. Lola leans forward, face pale, but her lips curve into something like a smile. Not hope or victory. Just survival.
My hand throbs. My back aches. I reach for her, and she lets me pull her into my lap, no resistance. We sit together as the world tears down everything Richard built. Every lie, every bribe, every threat.
I let myself smile, just for a second, knowing what I am. Knowing what it cost. This is the part that’s mine.
Let the rest burn.
The news cycle repeats. Asset seizures, houses stripped down to the studs for evidence, boxes of paperwork.
Photos of buildings I know by heart, glass and steel and secrets.
The words corruption, organized crime, racketeering, parade across the ticker in red.
All his sins laid bare. I want to feel something.
Pride? Relief? Instead there’s a hollow cavity where my chest should be, droning emptiness, only the satisfaction of a job finished.
The kill is done. No thrill, just the taste of necessity.
Lola’s voice is so quiet I almost miss it. “It’s really over. He’s actually…gone.”
I lean forward, elbows on my knees. The evidence scrolls by on repeat. His name. His mugshot. The end of everything he ever tried to build. “He won’t hurt anyone again,” I say. My voice. “Not now. They’ll make sure.”
Her fingers tighten. There’s no color in her knuckles. She tries to process, but the shock smothers her. I know that look. I’ve worn it before. Breathe in, breathe out, wait for the other shoe, because it always drops.
On TV, they roll the tape again. Cuffs biting his wrists. His tie askew. The camera zooms, catching the flash of his eyes, still calculating even as the world burns down around him. My father, the kingpin, the fixer, reduced to a cautionary tale and a hashtag. Not even a man anymore. Just a lesson.
Lola’s head turns, just barely. She’s still sunk into herself, but something in her eyes finds mine. “You really did it,” she says. “You turned on him. Betrayed him.” No accusation, just awe. Like I’m something she can’t understand.
I breathe. Cold air. “He made it easy.” The words cut out, angry and dark. “After I saw the truth of what he was—what he did—there was nothing left to be loyal to. He was a rabid animal. Needed to be put down.”
She’s shaking, just a little. Not fear. Residual tremor from abandonment, from knowing the ground under you is gone for good. “But he was still your dad,” she says. Like the word means something. Like blood outweighs reality.
I almost laugh. There’s no humor. “He stopped being my father a long time ago. All he ever wanted was a puppet, not a son.” I watch her face, and it’s like looking at the sun through cracked glass. “You’re the only thing that’s ever mattered, Bambi. The only good thing. The only innocent left."
She blinks, her lashes wet. Blue glow scatters over her cheekbones, making her look like a ghost girl, someone delicate and impossible. “Don’t say that,” she whispers. “I’m not. I’m not innocent. Not anymore.”
I reach across the stolen space between us.
My hand covers hers. Her bones press against my palm.
“I know you don’t believe it. But I do. Marcus tried to ruin you.
Break you.” At the memory of him, leering, voice spiked with smugness, his hands on everything, my fists clench. “He failed. You’re still here.”
Lola bites her lip. The TV volume dips, static crackle, some legal expert pontificating about plea bargains and federal time. None of it matters. Nothing out there matters. Only her, alive and breathing, in the ruins of a life we can maybe build from scratch.
“Was it hard?” she asks. “Turning on him like that?”
“No. Not after what he made me do. Protecting him meant putting you in danger. It meant becoming a fucking monster. I couldn’t. Not with you in the world.”
She looks at me like she’s searching for a lie, but she won’t find one. I don’t hide anymore, not from her. “You aren’t a monster,” she says. The words tremble, but they land.
I wish I could believe her. “I am what he built. The kill dog. The shadow. But you—” My voice cracks, a break in the emptiness. “You’re the only reason I even remember how to feel anything. If I had to kill the whole world to keep you safe, I would.”
I can hear her heartbeat, the flutter of her breath, the tight breaths stuck in her throat. Blue light etches the wall, outlining her silhouette. I want to pull her close, keep her pressed against my chest until nothing outside can ever reach her again.
Lola leans into me. Just the smallest touch, but it sends a shock through my system. “What happens now?” she asks. “Are we…free?”
That’s a joke. The universe doesn’t do freedom. “I don’t know,” I say, honesty barreling out. “But he can’t hurt us anymore. No one can, if I have anything to say about it.”
Her hand trembles in mine. I squeeze. I want her anchored, to something real, something that won’t vanish when the morning burns off. “You did it for me,” she says. “Everything.”
I nod. Simple as breathing. “For you. Always for you.” The things I’ve done, the blood on my hands, the memories that hunt me in the dark. All worth it, if she’s here, if she can finally breathe.
She lets herself breathe, just a little. Relax. Her shoulders slump, the fight leaking out of her. “I always thought Marcus would win. That men like him always do.”
I shake my head. “No one’s winning here.” My thumb strokes her wrist—pulse, fragile, alive. “You survived. That’s more than he ever did.”
She folds into me. Flesh, heat, reality. Her hair brushes my jaw, soft and wild. “I don’t know how to be normal after this,” she admits. Her voice is so small. “It’s like… everything’s burned out.”
I understand. More than anyone. “There is no normal,” I say. “There’s just before and after. We build from ashes. That’s all.”
Lola looks up, eyes glassy, pupils wide. “Does it ever stop hurting?”
I shake my head, no lies. “Not really. But you learn to live with it. Or you find something that makes it mean less.” My hand moves to her cheek, thumb over her jaw, possessive and tender and so fucking desperate. “You make it mean less.”
We sit in the blue cold, wrapped up in the static of a world that doesn’t want us. I watch the days of my life flicker across that screen. They call it justice. I call it hollow.
But Lola is here, alive, skin warm under my hand. That’s what matters.
She leans in, presses her forehead to mine. I inhale her. “Thank you,” she murmurs. “For saving me. Even if it cost you everything.”
My mouth finds hers, gentle, bruised, a promise carved in the dark. “You’re everything,” I whisper. “There was never anything else worth saving.”
Her breath shudders. I want to keep her like this, wrapped up tight, blue-lit and safe, nothing outside, not ever again. Maybe if I hold her hard enough, the old world will finally dissolve. Maybe the stains on my soul won’t show up in the daylight. Maybe.
But I know better. The scars are there. I can only keep her close. I can only keep her mine.
She buries her face in my shirt. “You could’ve gotten away. Started over somewhere. Why stay?”
“Because I want you.” I run my hand through her hair. “I could never leave you with the monsters.”
She shivers. Not fear, something old breaking open, a cage with rusted bars. “I still don’t get it. Why me?”
I shake my head. The urge to devour her, to make her understand, rises like a fever. “Because you’re the only one who ever looked past the surface. The only one who made me feel fucking real. Maybe that makes me weak. I don’t care.”
She breathes slowly. “You’re not weak. You’re—” The word dies. She can’t finish it. I fill the silence with my hands, my body, occupying the world so nothing else can intrude.
We stay there, locked up in new silence. All the old ghosts howling in the corners, but for now, caged.
I watch her. The way she calms, heartbeat evening out. The way hope sneaks across her face, like a cat burglar breaking into a fortress. Fragile and almost invisible, but it’s there. A thread of what might be.
“Can we just… stay like this?” she asks.
I nod. “Yeah. For as long as you want.”
So we do. Minutes bleed together. Outside, the world howls for answers, blood, spectacle. In here, it’s just Lola and me, breathing in the blue.
She musters a laugh, a real one, weak but alive. “You’re not what I expected, Brody Voss.”
I smirk. “You either, Lola Bloom.”
On the TV, my family name goes up in smoke. They turn the volume up. They dissect my father’s life, his failings, his empire reduced to paperwork and mugshots. Lola winces for me. That man was never my family, not really.