Chapter 56 Bastian
BASTIAN
clean·down: /kli?n da?n/: verb/noun
I drive home on autopilot. Aleksei’s photograph is burning a hole in my pocket. My mouth tastes like a menthol ashtray and the vodka I drank stings in the pit of my stomach.
The penthouse is dark when I walk in. I shrug out of my tuxedo jacket and toss it over the back of the couch.
“… Bastian?”
I turn to find Sage wheeling out of his room, dressed in a button-down and jeans that actually look ironed. His hair is combed. He’s wearing cologne. He stops short when he sees me. “What are you doing here? I thought you had the gala.”
“I do. I did.”
His brow furrows. “Then why—”
“Where are you going?” I interrupt.
“Lilah’s picking me up in a minute. We’re going to an arcade.” He wheels closer and squints at me. “Basti, what’s wrong?”
Everything. Nothing. I don’t know anymore.
I shake my head. “It’s nothing you need to worry about.”
“Bull-fucking-shit.” Sage’s jaw sets in that stubborn way that reminds me he’s got my blood running through his veins. Izotov blood. “You look like someone just ran over your dog. So either tell me what’s going on, or I’m calling Eliana.”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I snarl with venom.
His eyes widen at my outburst. “Bastian, brother, what the hell happened?”
“Nothing happened. I just—” I drag a hand through my hair. “I need to handle some things.”
“What things?”
Things like whether I’m willing to murder a stranger to save my empire.
Things like whether I’m my brother’s keeper or his accomplice.
Things like whether the man Eliana thinks she loves even exists, or if I’ve just been playing dress-up in a life that was never meant to be mine.
But I can’t say any of that. Definitely not to Sage. He’s supposed to be the one good thing I’ve managed not to destroy.
Apropos of nothing, I flash back to the night of the accident.
Sage was eight years old, buckled into the passenger seat. He’d begged me to take him for a drive out of the city. I’d been working so much, so many long nights, and the guilt of not being there for him was killing me, so I caved.
And since we were out, I wanted to make him happy. He’d been dealt a tough fucking hand, this little brother of mine. I wanted to see him smile for once.
“Faster, Basti!” he’d shouted, grinning so wide his whole face lit up. “Come on, faster!”
So I did. I pressed the accelerator and watched the speedometer climb. Fifty. Sixty. Seventy.
Sage threw his hands up like he was on a roller coaster, laughing that wild, free laugh that all children inherit as a birthright until the world rips it away. He was happy. Happy. For once in his difficult little life, he was just a kid having fun.
I didn’t see the black ice until we were already on it.
The car fishtailed. I yanked the wheel, overcorrected. We spun in a full circle before slamming sideways into a telephone pole.
Then—
Metal crunching. Glass shattering. Sage’s scream cutting off mid-breath.
When the world stopped spinning, I crawled through the wreckage. The driver’s side door had crumpled like tinfoil, but I forced myself through the shattered window, ignoring the glass tearing bloody chunks out of my palms.
Sage hung motionless in his seat, head lolled forward, blood streaming from somewhere I couldn’t see.
“Sage!” I bellowed through a hoarse, smoke-scarred throat, fumbling with his seatbelt. “Sage, come on.”
The belt wouldn’t budge, so I grabbed a jagged piece of metal and sawed and sawed and sawed. It carved my palm to ribbons, but I didn’t give a fuck.
Finally, the fabric of the belt gave way with a ripping sound and I dragged him out, cradling his broken body against my chest as I staggered away from the car. My back hit the telephone pole and I slid down with my unconscious little brother in my lap.
Behind us, flames licked up from the engine. The heat pressed against my spine, burning, searing, but I couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything except hold my little brother and pray.
His eyes fluttered open. “B-Bastian?”
“I’m here, Sage. I’m right here.”
“Basti, I can’t feel my legs.”
Something in my chest cracked wider than the windshield. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Help’s coming.”
But I knew. Even then, watching his small face go pale in the firelight, I knew what I’d done.
Yes, I knew. Oh, how I fucking knew.
I blink back to the present and look up at Sage in his wheelchair—the wheelchair he’ll be in for the rest of his life because of me.
We’ve been doing so good lately. He’s becoming a man in his own right. I said those words myself just a few short days ago. But that doesn’t change what he is to me and me to him.
I am his keeper. He is mine to protect, and the only way to do that is to dirty my own hands so his can remain clean. I’ll wear the blood. I’ll bear the scars. I’ll take the pain so he doesn’t have to.
So he never has to feel the pain again.
“You’re not going out,” I tell him.
He blinks in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re not going out,” I say again. I rise to my feet, grab his chair, and start pushing him back down the hall.
He’s still baffled, too bewildered to even try to resist. He just keeps saying my name—“Bash? Bash?”—again and again as I return him to his room. “Bastian, what’re you—”
I yank the door shut and lock it from the outside. When he realizes what I’ve done, he starts beating on the door with his fists. He’s saying my name still, but roaring it this time, a cry of anguish and betrayal.
“Basti! Bastian, what the fuck?! Bash! Bash!”
I turn my back on all of it. I’m sorry, I think. I’m so fucking sorry.
But sorry doesn’t fix anything. It never has. The only thing that’s ever changed anything is blood. Mine or someone else’s, it doesn’t matter—blood is what moves the world. Without it, everything remains the same.
Blood on the tile.
So much blood on the tile.
I go to the kitchen and yank open the drawer where I keep the knives. I pull one free, check the edge, and nod. This will work.
Then I stride out into the night to do my brother’s bidding.
Blood on the tile.
So much blood on the tile.