Chapter Twenty-Seven Khai
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Khai
For the second time tonight, I leave her alone in my bed.
The act carves something hollow into my chest. I hate the distance immediately, the empty space where she should be.
Every part of me wants to stay, to crawl in beside her and pull her against me.
To hold her until the world goes quiet. To breathe her in.
To lose myself in her warmth and forget, just for a few hours, everything else.
Instead, I walk away.
I return to the kitchen and pour myself a drink, heavy, unforgiving. I’m going to need it if I’m going to get through this. The burn of whisky is familiar as I sit at the breakfast bar, the manila envelope clenched tight in my fingers.
I didn’t let myself look at it properly earlier. I couldn’t.
Now, I don’t have the luxury of avoidance.
Whatever is inside has to matter. It has to be enough to finally bring my father down. To ruin him the way he ruined everything else. To finish this.
With a slow breath, I pull the papers free.
Almost every document inside is dated to the day Liam died.
Timelines. Locations. His movements. Mine. Text messages stripped of meaning until you know how to read between the lines. Phone records that look harmless unless you understand what was being hidden.
Then there are the photos.
My jaw tightens.
Liam. Me. Captured separately, in moments that feel cruel in hindsight, mundane, unguarded, unaware of how close we were to the edge. Proof frozen in time, waiting to be used.
I stare at them longer than I should, the past pressing in, heavy and unrelenting.
I study the photos more closely, letting my eyes linger where they don’t want to.
That’s when it hits me.
The images of me are from a different date.
Every photo is time-stamped. Precise. Unforgiving. The pictures of me were taken the day before. The ones of Liam are all from the day he died.
My jaw tightens.
It still doesn’t make sense. Not yet. The pieces refuse to align, like they’re deliberately resisting the truth.
I keep going anyway.
I have to.
There’s a job order buried among the papers, routine on the surface. Target details. Locations. Timelines. Clean. Professional. The kind of assignment that shouldn’t have mattered.
So why did it?
Why was this so important to him that someone had to die for it?
The hope I walked into this with starts to thin, stretched almost transparent, but I don’t stop. I sip my whisky slowly, the burn grounding me as I comb through every page, every line, every omission.
And then I see it.
Hospital records.
My breath stills.
Liam was pronounced dead at the scene. I know that. I was there. There shouldn’t be anything beyond that, no admissions, no follow-ups, no paperwork.
But it’s all here.
Records of him being brought in. Time stamps that don’t belong. Notes that shouldn’t exist.
There’s nothing else. No other medical history. Just this.
Just Liam.
A slow, gnawing suspicion settles low in my gut.
Something about this is wrong. Not missing, wrong. The kind of wrong you feel before you can prove it, when instinct starts whispering louder than reason.
I go through everything again, more carefully this time. Page by page. Photo by photo. Searching for the detail I overlooked the first time. When I reach the photographs again, I slow, studying them with fresh eyes, trying to understand what made them worth preserving.
I turn them over.
My father’s handwriting stares back at me.
Names. Mine. Liam’s.
Except they’re wrong.
My fingers curl around the edge of the photo as a sharp, cold realization sinks in. Either he was so careless he couldn’t tell us apart, or he didn’t want to. Both possibilities turn my stomach.
I flip over the one labelled Khai.
And I’m staring at my brother.
His last full day alive.
He’s walking out of a motorbike shop, caught mid-step, shoulders relaxed, expression focused.
No doubt buying another beast he didn’t need.
He was the one who dragged me into riding in the first place, insisted I learn, swore it would save me.
And in some ways, it did. I still feel closest to him on a bike, like the road keeps part of him with me.
Seeing him like this hurts all over again.
He looks healthy. Solid. Alive. Not like an addict spiralling toward an overdose. Not like someone on the edge of self-destruction. I know he dabbled when things got rough, used it to quiet the noise, but never like that. Never enough to kill him.
The thought lands hard, knocking the breath from my lungs. Why isn’t there an autopsy report?
This wasn’t a natural death. It shouldn’t have ended quietly. Yet the paperwork isn’t here. Everything else is, timelines, records, even funeral arrangements, but not the one thing that should have existed.
The absence is deliberate.
And suddenly, I’m no longer searching for answers.
I’m uncovering what someone went to great lengths to erase.
I fire off a message to Jaxon and Keys, my fingers moving faster than my thoughts.
Khai:
You sure there were no other papers? No second envelope? There are no medical records here.
Keys, can you pull hospital records and autopsy reports?
The replies come quickly.
Jaxon:
Nothing else. Just the envelope from the safety deposit box.
Keys:
I’ll start digging now. I’ll report back.
I set the phone down and take in the mess spread across the kitchen island. Papers everywhere. Fragments of a truth that refuse to align. I try to force them into order, into meaning, but nothing fits. Nothing explains enough.
Frustration coils tight in my chest.
I pour another drink, the clink of ice too loud in the quiet, and check my phone again. Still nothing. The waiting gnaws at me.
Eventually, I drift back toward the bedroom.
The door is still ajar, the room steeped in darkness. I step inside and stop at the foot of the bed.
She’s asleep.
Curled beneath the covers, hair fanned across the pillow, breathing slow and even. Peaceful. Untouched by the storm gathering just beyond these walls. For a moment, the sight of her steals the air from my lungs.
I feel like an impending disaster standing over her. Like the thing that could fracture her world with a single truth.
No.
That won’t happen.
I won’t let it.
She will be safe in my world. I’ll make sure of it. Whatever this costs me, whatever lines I have to cross, she will never feel the fear I carry.
I need her safe.
I need her here. With me. Every day.
The realization is sharp. Dangerous. Terrifying in its certainty.
She’s under my skin now, woven too deep to remove. Not that I’d want to. Not even if I could.
I leave the bedroom before I lose control and take her again.
She needs rest. Safety. Sleep untouched by the things circling us. I close the distance quietly, pulling the door almost shut, enough to hear her breathe, not enough to wake her.
Then I turn away.
The kitchen greets me with harsh light and unanswered questions. As I step inside, my phone lights up in my hand.
My father.
I answer without a greeting.
“Any updates?” he asks. Cold. Flat. Like we’re discussing inventory.
“Nothing yet,” I say. “Head of security’s been handled.”
A pause. Too long to be nothing.
“Not good enough,” he replies. “Something tells me you’re stalling.”
My jaw tightens. “What’s so important about it?” I ask, keeping my voice even. “Why the urgency?”
A faint, humourless sound slips down the line. “Nothing of importance to you, boy.”
There it is again. Boy.
“I’ve got leads of my own,” he adds smoothly. Too smoothly. Like he’s already several steps ahead.
“Then use them,” I snap. “Why am I still on this call?”
Silence.
For a moment I think he’s hung up. Then,
“I want this sorted by tomorrow night.”
The words land heavy. Final.
I grind my teeth, already done with this conversation. Still, he doesn’t disconnect.
“And Khai,” he continues, voice lowering. “I hear you’ve been… hiding that pretty little thing of yours. You’ve always been careless when you think you’ve got the upper hand.”
My gaze flicks, involuntarily, towards where my bedroom is.
“You nervous about something?” he presses, too casually. Like he already knows the answer.
My phone vibrates again, this time with a text. I switch him to speaker without breaking eye contact with the envelope and open the thread with Jaxon and Keys.
Keys:
There are no medical records from that night. Or any night after. Only that Liam was brought in. I’ve searched every hospital in the state. There’s nothing.
My blood turns cold.
“Are you listening to me?” my father snaps.
I don’t answer him directly. Instead, I ask, “How did you tell us apart?”
A sharp intake of breath. Barely controlled.
“There is no how,” he says too quickly. “I just did. What kind of father do you think I am?”
The question cracks something open.
“What is this about, Khai?” he asks, and I hear the unmistakable sound of liquid being swallowed. Glass against teeth. Nerves.
“Just wanted to know,” I say quietly. “Goodbye, Father.”
“Don’t you dare”
I end the call.
The phone immediately starts buzzing again. I ignore it.
Instead, I open the group chat and type one final message before locking the screen.
Whatever he thinks he knows,
he’s circling the truth now.
And I won’t let him get to her.
Not ever.
Khai:
My father is responsible for Liam’s death. Tomorrow, I confront him. This ends.
I set the phone down before anyone can respond. There’s nothing more to say.
I finish my drink in one slow swallow and let the burn settle me. Then I turn back toward the bedroom.
I strip down to my boxers and slide into the bed quietly, careful not to wake her.
Emmy stirs, just slightly, a soft sound leaving her lips before she settles again. I curl around her instinctively, my arm sliding around her waist, drawing her back against my chest. She fits there like she belongs, like she always has.
I breathe her in.
Her warmth. Her scent. The steady rhythm of her breathing. I listen to it, let it anchor me, let it remind me why I can’t afford to fail. Why tomorrow matters. Why restraint tonight is not weakness, but necessity.
I allow myself this moment.
Not comfort, resolve.
A glimpse of what I’m fighting for. A reminder of what’s at stake if I lose. If I hesitate. If I don’t finish what my father started.
She shifts again, pressing closer in her sleep, unaware of the war forming just beneath the surface. I hold her tighter, careful, controlled.
She will be safe.
I will make sure of it.
And with that vow burning quietly in my chest, I let sleep take me, deep and dreamless, with the woman I will never let go of right beside me.
Tonight, I don’t dream.
Tonight, I rest.
Finally.