Chapter 40
Dominic
Dominic,
I’m sorry. I know this is a shitty way to do this. I know I should have waited and said it to your face, but if I had, I don’t think I would’ve left.
Things have changed between us in ways I wasn’t prepared for, and I got scared. That’s the simplest way to say it. And that probably makes me a coward.
I’ve gone to LA for a while to stay with my half-brother. Please don’t try to talk me out of this.
I need space.
Thank you for everything you did for me. I’m sorry for repaying it by leaving.
Knox
For a long moment he only stared at the note, eyes moving over Knox’s handwriting as if, by sheer force of will, he could make the words rearrange themselves into something else. Some misunderstanding. Some stupid joke. But the meaning remained the same.
Knox had left him.
Knox had left him.
The realization didn’t hit all at once. It spread slowly, like cold seeping under a door, creeping in before he understood he was shivering from it.
He read the letter again.
And again.
The paper crumpled in his fist before he registered the movement. A sound tore out of him—low, feral, ripped from somewhere he didn’t know existed. “Fuuuck.”
He turned in a tight circle, irrationally searching the loft as if Knox might still be there. Like this could still be caught in time, stopped, reversed.
Nothing.
The loft answered him with a silence so total it felt like a physical thing pressing against his eardrums.
Gone.
His hand pressed flat against the marble. His head dropped. For a moment he just stood there, breathing, trying to locate the part of himself that handles things—the cold, rational machinery that had never once failed him in thirty-eight years of navigating a world designed to kill men like him.
He couldn’t find it.
“Jesus Christ.” He slammed his palm against the counter so hard the sound cracked through the loft. The impact traveled up his arm, grounding him in the sting of it. That at least was a kind of hurt he knew what to do with.
The other thing—the thing clawing at his ribs—he had no practice for.
Space.
His jaw clenched until it ached. “Space,” he repeated out loud, the word tasting like poison.
Knox hadn’t run from danger. Not from the violence, or the blood, or any of the things that should have sent a twenty-two-year-old sprinting for the exit.
He’d run from him.
And he’d left a fucking note.
For one ugly second, Dominic hated him. For the absence that already felt like an amputation. For creating a wound he couldn’t retaliate against, because there was no enemy to destroy, no threat to neutralize. There was only a boy who’d gotten scared and chosen to go.
He leaned back against the counter and closed his eyes, forcing himself to breathe through the surge of violence under his skin.
It burned.
God, it burned.
The obsession didn’t dim. It deepened. Grew roots. Grew teeth.
It burned because Knox had gotten further than anyone.
He had slipped past every defense Dominic had built over the years and lodged himself somewhere vital.
“You little fool,” he murmured. The words would have sounded affectionate to anyone listening, but there was nothing gentle about the possession coiling in his chest.
Knox thought distance would save him. Thought miles and highways and a different city could dilute whatever had grown between them.
He pulled out his phone and hit Cassian’s number.
Cassian answered on the first ring. “You back al—?”
“Find out where Knox’s brother lives.”
“What happened?”
Dominic looked at the letter. The paper was creased where he’d crushed it. He smoothed it flat against the counter with deliberate care, one hand pressing across the wrinkles. “He left.”
“Left how?”
“He ran to Los Angeles,” Dominic replied evenly. “Left me a fucking apology.”
Cassian let out a deep breath. “You’re kidding.”
Dominic stared at Knox’s name at the bottom of the page. The letters were shaky all the way across. “Do I sound like I’m kidding?”
Silence.
“You want me to get him?” Cassian asked.
The answer rose so fast it made him dizzy.
Because god—yes. Yes, he wanted to drive to Los Angeles, walk through whatever door Knox was hiding behind, put him over his shoulder, and bring him back where he belonged.
The image formed with terrifying clarity—Knox struggling, furious, breathless in his grip. Alive and within reach and his again.
It frightened him how right it felt. How complete.
“No,” he said at last.
The word was the hardest thing he’d ever said.
He walked to the window, gaze unfocused on the street below. His reflection stared back from the glass, silent and lethal. The kind of calm men learned to fear. “I want the brother’s address,” he said. “And I want eyes on Knox. At all times.”
“Dom…”
“No one touches him.” His voice dropped. “No one approaches him. I want to know who he sees. Where he goes. Whether he’s alone.”
Cassian was quiet for a beat. “You’re taking this well.”
Dominic ended the call.
Knox wanted space.
Fine.
He could have it. He could breathe LA air, sit in his brother’s house, and convince himself he’d made the right choice. He could lie awake in a stranger’s spare room and tell himself that distance would dull whatever burned between them.
Dominic would give him exactly enough rope to realize he was wrong.
He rested his forehead against the glass. Knox’s letter was still in his hand. “You stupid, frightened boy,” he whispered to the empty loft. “You can run. But I’m bringing you home.”
It wasn’t hope or a plea.
It was a promise.