Chapter Ten Khai
Chapter Ten
Khai
My father doesn’t summon people.
He expects them to arrive already fractured into obedience.
By the time I pull up to the gates of his estate, the house beyond them is lit like a cathedral, every window glowing, every shadow alert and waiting.
The iron gates slide shut behind me with a finality that settles deep in my bones.
I kill the engine but don’t move right away, sitting there longer than necessary, reminding myself that in this family fear and respect are indistinguishable.
The fifteen missed calls weren’t concern.
They were a warning.
Inside, the house greets me with its familiar chill, polished floors, hollow silence, an absence of warmth masquerading as luxury.
My boots carry me forward without conscious thought, down the long corridor toward his office.
Each step echoes, measured and deliberate, like the countdown to an execution.
I don’t bother knocking.
He’s seated behind his desk, eyes fixed on the glow of his computer screen, posture relaxed in a way that’s never accidental. He doesn’t look up when I enter. He doesn’t need to.
“I don’t like waiting, boy.”
The word scrapes down my spine, grinds against bone. Boy. I’m thirty years old, built my own empire with blood and teeth, and still, he wields that single word like a leash, reminding me that to him, I will always be something beneath his heel. Something shaped, owned, and corrected at will.
I say nothing.
Silence has always been the only rebellion he tolerates.
“I was busy,” I finally say through clenched teeth. My hands curl at my sides, fingers digging into my palms until my nails carve half-moons into my skin. Pain is grounding. Necessary.
“I don’t care about your personal distractions,” he replies coolly, still refusing to look at me. “You answer to me. When I call, I expect obedience.”
He pauses, then adds, “We lost an important job because of your selfishness.”
A bitter laugh scrapes up my throat. “You mean you lost a payout,” I snap. “I’m the one who does your dirty work. I’m the one who gets blood on his hands while you sit behind that desk, an old man barking orders like a king with no battlefield.”
I lift my chin a fraction higher, forcing myself to stay still. To stay contained. One wrong move and I’ll explode.
That’s when he finally looks up.
Pure rage burns in his eyes, cold, calculated, familiar.
His jaw locks tight as his hands curl into fists atop the desk.
Slowly, deliberately, he plants his palms down and rises from his chair, letting it roll back with a soft, ominous scrape.
His gaze drops, skimming the surface of the desk, darting from object to object like he’s weighing his options.
Then his hand closes around something.
And in the blink of an eye, it’s airborne, hurtling toward me with all the force of his fury.
I shift just enough.
Not fast enough to escape it entirely.
The knife slices past me, the blade kissing my shoulder in a line of fire before embedding itself deep into the oak door behind me with a vicious thud. The impact rattles the room, the sound lingering like a held breath.
My gaze drops briefly to the blood seeping through my shirt, warm, real, before lifting back to him. The world narrows, vision tunnelling until there’s nothing left but the man who made me this way.
My hand moves on instinct. Muscle memory. Survival.
I draw the gun from the back of my pants and level it at his head, arm steady despite the pulse roaring in my ears. “Throw something else at me, old man,” I snarl. “I dare you.”
The barrel doesn’t waver.
He says 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 I need, 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.