Chapter Seventeen Dylan
I don’t remember leaving the penthouse.
One minute—I’m staring at the closed door she slipped behind. The next—I’m a weapon already drawn.
Her phone tracker pings three blocks away. Near the riverfront. Alone.
Alone. That word is gasoline to every fear I’ve ever buried.
The car barely stops before I’m out, boots hitting pavement, adrenaline hitting blood. Noise swarms the street—horns, traffic, people—but through it I hear one thing:
Her voice.
“Let go.”
I see them.
Trevor’s hand clamped around her arm. Her face—white with fear. Her body angled away like she’s trying to fold herself into air.
Something inside me breaks so fast I don’t feel the snap—only the aftermath.
I reach him before he can turn.
“Take your hand off her.”
He laughs—actually laughs—like I’m a joke in a bar he already owns.
“You took my girl,” he spits. “I’m just taking her back.”
Wrong sentence.
My hand closes around his wrist, grip precise, clinical. I twist—not enough to break, just enough to make him feel what could happen.
He screams.
Sunny staggers free, scrambling back. I see the tear tracks on her cheeks—like wounds carved in porcelain.
I shove Trevor away. He hits pavement, breath ripped from his lungs.
“Get up,” I say.
Because I want him to. Because I want an excuse.
He glares up at me from the sidewalk. “You’re just a wallet with legs. She’ll bleed you dry next.”
Sunny flinches. His words land like knives—and I see her believing them.
That’s the worst part.
Not him. Her reaction to him.
He pushes to stand—and I step into his space.
“If you ever touch her again,” I say quietly, “you won't walk away.”
His eyes widen. He hears the truth in my voice.
This isn't a threat. It's a vow.
He backs away. Disappears into the dark.
And suddenly—the street is too quiet.
Sunny is still shaking. Hands trembling. Breath ragged.
I approach slowly—like she’s a trembling animal I’m afraid of frightening further.
“Sunny,” I say—just her name.
Her body folds. Like she’s been holding herself together by thread.
She collapses into me.
I catch her—arms around her before she hits the ground. She buries her face in my chest, sobbing in a way that sounds like years—not days—of pain.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t—”
“Don’t apologize,” I say—voice razor-edged. “You don’t owe anyone an apology for surviving.”
She shakes her head. “But I made it worse—”
“He made it worse,” I correct. “Not you. Never you.”
I hold her until her sobs turn to tremors, until her breathing slows, until she’s somewhere between exhaustion and the fragile beginning of safety.
Only then do I lift her—one arm under her knees, one behind her back.
“Dylan,” she murmurs, barely conscious. “You… came.”
Always. I don’t say it aloud.
But I know she hears the answer anyway.
I lay her on the couch—not the bed. Space matters. Choice matters.
She curls toward me even in sleep.
I sit beside her. I don’t touch. I don’t sleep.
I just watch. Guard dog. Ghost. Prisoner of every feeling I never meant to have.
Connor calls at 2 a.m. I answer without looking away from her.
“Tell me she’s okay,” he says.
“She’s asleep.”
“Good. Because you're about to need all your strength tomorrow.”
Something in his tone chills me. “Why?”
He exhales. “Marcus is forcing the board’s hand.”
My jaw locks. “Let him.”
“No,” Connor says. “You don’t understand. He’s leveraging her. Her photo. The Vegas marriage. Tonight. Everything.”
I don’t breathe.
“He plans to file a motion,” Connor continues. “Remove you from Knight Capital unless you walk away from Sunny. Publicly. Fully. Immediately.”
Silence stretches so long it feels like a future.
“You can rebuild a company,” Connor says softly. “You can’t rebuild a woman broken by losing you.”
But he’s wrong. Because either choice—destroys something.
If I lose the company—I lose the power to protect her.
If I lose her—I become the man I swore I'd never be.
I look at Sunny—sleeping, fragile, unaware.
And I realize the truth:
I don’t know how to choose.
The city outside keeps moving.
But I stay still—
while the decision that could end both of us waits like a blade at my throat.