Chapter Twelve Khai
Chapter Twelve
Khai
Blood coats my hands.
Not splatter. Not streaks.
Soaked.
It fills the creases of my palms, sinks under my nails, dries sticky against my skin like it belongs there. I stare down at them, flex my fingers slowly, watching the red pull and crack.
I don’t remember pulling the trigger.
The warehouse hums around me, low, vibrating, wrong. Concrete walls slick with gore. Bodies everywhere. Some whole. Some not. The air smells like iron and gunpowder, and something burned past recognition.
Someone screams.
It might be me.
Jaxon laughs somewhere to my right, sharp and unhinged. “Jesus, Khai,” he says, wiping blood from his face like it’s sweat. “You really made a mess of this one.”
I look up.
The body at my feet is missing its face.
I blink.
It’s whole again.
The lights flicker. The world stutters like it skipped a frame. My hands,
Clean.
No.
Bloody again.
My stomach drops.
Something beeps.
Soft. Steady. Rhythmic.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
I turn in a slow circle, gun raised on instinct, but there’s nothing. Just the warehouse stretching too long, the ceiling too high, the shadows bending at angles that make my head ache.
My phone vibrates in my pocket.
The sound is wrong, too loud, too sharp, cutting straight through my skull.
I pull it out.
Liam.
My heart slams so hard it hurts.
“Liam?” My voice breaks around his name. “Where are you?”
Static crackles. Then breathing. Shallow. Wet. Like he’s drowning.
“Khai…” His voice sounds far away. Echoing. Like he’s calling from the end of a tunnel. “I need you.”
“I’m coming,” I say immediately. No hesitation. “I’m on my way. Where are you?”
A pause.
Then, “Don’t.”
I frown. “What?”
“I need you,” he says again, words tangled, slipping over each other. “But you can’t come here. You can’t, fuck, Khai, stay away.”
The beeping gets louder.
My chest tightens. “You’re not making sense.”
“I messed up,” he whispers. “I shouldn’t have, he wasn’t supposed to,”
“Who?” I snap. “Who wasn’t supposed to what?”
The line crackles. Something shifts. His breathing stutters.
“I’m scared,” Liam says. “I don’t want to die.”
Panic claws up my throat. “You’re not going to,” I say fiercely. “I swear to you. I’ll be there in,”
I glance at the dash.
The numbers blur. Slide. Lock into place.
9 minutes.
“I’ll be there in nine minutes,” I tell him. “Just stay awake. Stay with me.”
Silence.
Then, so quiet it almost disappears, “I love you.”
The call drops.
The world lurches.
I’m driving.
No,
I’m already parked.
The car door slams behind me, echoing too loud in the stairwell. My boots hit concrete as I run, each step delayed, hollow, like the sound belongs to someone else.
The corridor stretches longer than it should. Lights flicker overhead, too white, too bright.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“What floor?” I mutter, sprinting.
My phone shows nothing. No signal. No time.
Liam’s apartment door is already cracked open.
“No,” I breathe.
I don’t remember kicking it in, but suddenly it explodes inward, wood splintering as I crash through.
The smell hits me first.
Chemical. Sour. Sweet.
Vomit.
The apartment is trashed. Furniture overturned. Drawers ripped out. Pill bottles scattered across the floor like debris after an explosion. Glass crunches under my boots as I stagger forward.
“Liam?” I shout.
My voice echoes back wrong.
The kitchen light flickers.
And there he is.
Liam lies sprawled on the cold tile, limbs twisted, skin grey, lips tinged blue. White foam clings to his mouth, mixed with bile, trailing down his chin. His eyes are half-open.
Empty.
“No,” I whisper.
My knees hit the floor hard enough to rattle my teeth.
“No, no, no,”
I crawl to him, hands shaking as I gather him up, pulling him into my chest. He’s heavy. Too heavy. Dead weight in the most brutal sense.
“Hey,” I choke, brushing his hair back. “I’m here. I’m here. You hear me?”
The beeping is deafening now.
Flat. Insistent.
“Breathe,” I beg, forehead pressed to his. “Please. Just, fuck, just breathe.”
Nothing.
My hands come away wet.
Foam smears across my skin. I don’t care. I clutch him tighter, rocking on the kitchen floor, a broken sound tearing out of me.
“I said nine minutes,” I sob. “I said nine minutes”
I scream.
It rips out of my chest, raw and animal, shattering against the walls. I pound my fist into the floor, into my thigh, anywhere,
“I’m sorry,” I gasp. “I should’ve been here. I should’ve,”
Liam’s head lolls against my shoulder.
The room tilts.
The walls bend inward. The light strobes faster and faster.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“Khai.”
My name drags through the air.
“Khai.”
Something hooks into my spine and yanks,
I tear awake like I’ve been dragged out of water.
My chest heaves, lungs burning as I suck in air that feels too thick, too slow to fill me. For a second, I’m certain I’m still there, on the kitchen floor, Liam’s weight crushing my arms, the smell of vomit and death lodged in my throat.
The room is too dark.
I blink. Once. Twice.
Shadows pull themselves into shape. The ceiling. The walls. My bed. Reality seeps back in reluctantly, like it doesn’t want me here yet.
I lift my hands.
No blood.
No foam. No cold skin.
But my fingers still ache like they’ve been holding him. Like if I curl them tight enough, I’ll feel Liam there again, solid, lifeless, gone.
I love you.
His voice echoes through my head, quiet and final, splintering straight through my chest. The pain is sharp, intimate. The kind that knows exactly where to cut.
The room is silent.
No beeping. No alarms.
Just my ragged breathing and the sound of my own heart hammering like it’s trying to break out of my ribs.
I reach for my phone before I can think better of it. My thumb moves on instinct, muscle memory taking over while my head is still fogged with grief and fury and the lingering wrongness of the dream.
I type.
Khai
Warehouse. 30 minutes. Bring Keys.
I don’t wait for a reply.
I check the time.
3:09 a.m.
Of course it is.
Jaxon will be awake. Keys will be too. Night work suits men like us, creatures who function better in the dark, where blood doesn’t stand out so starkly and ghosts feel easier to carry.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed. They tremble beneath me, weak with leftover adrenaline, with the echo of helplessness I refuse to acknowledge while I’m conscious. My heart is still beating too fast, like it doesn’t trust the world I’ve woken up in.
Good.
Neither do I.
I stand and head for the shower, the need for heat and control clawing through me. Water. Steam. Something real. Something I can feel that isn’t him.
As I walk, I flex my hands again.
They’re clean.
They don’t feel like it
Hot water slams into my skin, stealing the air from my lungs as it cascades down my body.
I brace my hands against the tiled wall, head bowed, letting the heat bite, letting it hurt.
I welcome the jolt. I need it. Need something sharp enough to tear me free from the remnants of that nightmare clinging to my bones.
Steam fills the space, thick and blinding, wrapping around me until the world narrows to nothing but heat and breath and the steady rush of water. Slowly, my pulse begins to settle. Slowly, the images loosen their grip.
And then,
Her.
Emmy.
Little Heaven.
The thought of her slips in uninvited, soft and dangerous all at once. I shut my eyes, jaw tightening as her face flashes behind my lids. I shouldn’t have gone to her. I know that. I shouldn’t have crossed that line, shouldn’t have let myself need the sight of her the way I did.
But I did.
I needed to see her.
Getting into her building had been easy, too easy. A quiet conversation, a thick envelope, an emergency key pressed into my palm. I could’ve broken the door if I wanted to. Forced my way in. It would’ve taken seconds.
I didn’t.
I couldn’t stand the thought of upsetting her. Of frightening her. Of leaving even the smallest crack in her world that I’d caused.
I just needed to see her.
The moment she walked through that door, something inside me stilled. Like the chaos in my head recognised her before I did. She didn’t scream. Didn’t run. Didn’t look at me like I was a monster standing in her living room.
She looked after me.
The memory tightens low in my chest.
She wanted answers. Wanted more of me than I could ever safely give. And I hated myself for it, for holding back, for keeping her in the dark, but I won’t drag her into the rot that follows my name. She is too clean for it. Too untouched.
And I refuse to let my father so much as glance in her direction.
I shouldn’t have kissed her.
I should have turned away. Walked out. Left her untouched, unmarked.
But now that I’ve had a taste, now that I know the way she softens under my hands, the way she looks at me like she sees something worth saving, I know the truth.
I will never be able to step away from her.
I won’t forget her. I won’t release her.
I want her.
All of her
She’s already mine!
I get ready on instinct.
There’s no rush, no hesitation, just muscle memory taking over while my mind stays somewhere darker.
Every movement is precise, stripped of thought or emotion.
Black boots pulled on and laced tight. Dark jeans.
A worn t-shirt that still smells faintly of smoke and metal.
The hooded jacket last, armour disguised as fabric.
I don’t look in the mirror.
I don’t need to.
The man staring back would look too much like the one who just woke up screaming.
The garage yawns open beneath me, cold and quiet, concrete swallowing the sound of my footsteps. I swing my leg over the bike and settle into the familiar weight of it, hands wrapping around the grips like they were made for me alone.
The engine roars to life.
Good.
The vibration rattles through my bones, drowning out lingering echoes of beeping, of blood, of my brother’s voice whispering I love you like a curse I can’t outrun.
I pull out into the night, throttle twisting beneath my palm.
I need the wind. The speed. The violence of motion.
I need my head clear before I reach the warehouse, before blood replaces memory and purpose smothers grief.
The road stretches out in front of me, dark and empty.
And I disappear into it.
The ride to the warehouse is fast.
Quiet.
The kind of quiet that settles into my bones and smooths the rough edges just enough to keep me functional.
The road blurs beneath me, the city thinning out until it’s nothing but dark stretches of asphalt and the steady roar of the engine beneath my hands.
By the time the warehouse looms into view, my breathing has evened out, my pulse slowing to something cold and deliberate.
A faint light glows behind one of the shattered windows.
Good.
They’re already here.
I guide the bike through one of the open roller doors and cut the engine. Silence rushes in, thick and heavy, broken only by distant voices echoing somewhere deeper inside the building. The place smells like dust, oil, and old violence, familiar. Comforting, in its own twisted way.
I follow the sound.
“Yo! Khai,” Jaxon calls out as soon as he spots me, a cigarette hanging loose between his lips. “What’s with the middle-of-the-night meeting?”
Keys barely looks up, just gives me a nod from behind his laptop. The glow from the screen casts harsh shadows across his face, hair falling into his eyes, beanie pulled low like armour. His fingers never stop moving.
“I’ve been thinking about the last job,” I say, pulling a cigarette from my pocket and lighting it with steady hands. The first drag burns pleasantly. Grounds me. “The target mentioned my father sent him to deliver some sensitive documents to a safety deposit box.”
Jaxon’s posture shifts immediately, interest sharpening his expression. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “The file he saw. Yours and your brother’s names. That date.”
Keys keeps typing.
“I need that file.” I inhale deeply, smoke filling my lungs, easing the tightness coiled around my ribs.
“If my father had one of his own men put down just for seeing the front of it, then whatever’s inside has the power to hurt him.
” I pause, letting the implication settle.
“Which means it’s something I was never meant to see. Something worth killing over.”
Jaxon studies me for a long moment, really looks at me this time. Then he straightens, all humour gone. “Keys,” he says sharply. “Find the safety deposit box. Location, bank, everything.”
Keys nods once, already moving faster.
“I’ll pull our guys,” Jaxon continues, exhaling smoke as he points to himself. “Once we’ve got a location, we’ll retrieve it.”
Then his attention snaps back to me.
His eyes narrow.
“What the fuck happened to you?” he asks, stepping closer, anger flaring hot and sudden.
I grit my teeth. “I missed a few calls from my father.”
That’s all it takes.
Jaxon drags a hand through his hair, taking a few slow breaths like, he’s holding himself back from tearing something apart. He’s known me, and Liam, most of his life. Closer than blood. The anger rolling off him is thick and violent.
“That fucking old prick,” he mutters. “He’ll get what’s coming to him.”
The words land with weight. With promise.
Keys keeps working, code flashing across the screen. Jaxon moves off to make calls, voices low and lethal. And I stay where I am, smoke curling from my lips as my mind spirals.
What’s in that file.
Why my father buried it.
Why my brother’s name is tied to it.
And why, after all this time, the truth is finally clawing its way back to the surface, bloody, inevitable, and long overdue.