Chapter Seventeen
Asher
"Fucking Christ," I groan, staring at the phone vibrating on the countertop, face down. I don't bother to pick it up. There's no point when every notification lately is yet another grenade aimed at my head.
Clients are leaving, board members are resigning. There are new headlines every day about my "fall from grace." I could stop it. I could answer questions, grease a few palms, call in every debt I'm owed, or actually act like I give a shit.
Frankly, I could do a lot of things.
But I don't. I drink instead.
The whiskey I bought yesterday is gone. So is the bourbon. All I have left is the $3,000 bottle of Macallan I was saving for a day I'd actually want to celebrate. It's funny. There's fuck-all to celebrate now. I doubt there ever will be again. So I might as well drink it, right?
I pour three fingers into a tumbler and carry it to the window to watch the world grind on without me. Every single person down there thinks they're the main character. Every one of them is convinced they're just one good day away from whatever it is they think they deserve.
I could tell them that life doesn't work that way. It doesn't give a fuck about main characters or good days. And the only things you're given are the things you claw out of someone else's hands and wage war to keep. Everything else is someone else's for the taking.
They wouldn't believe me even if I screamed it from the fucking rooftops, so I tip my cup back and down it instead. The same fucking way I have every day since I destroyed everything.
It's been fourteen days since Brielle walked away. Eleven since our first client jumped ship. Four since the judge let me come back to New York, probably figuring it was safer to exile me to my tower here than to keep me in the same city as Miles Andrews.
Brielle hasn't tried to call me once.
I drain the glass at the reminder, already striding back to the bar. The penthouse is too quiet. It's always too goddamn quiet these days, her absence magnifying just how fucking empty my life truly is.
No one checks in. No one wonders how I'm doing or if I'm still breathing. I never let anyone get close enough to dare. No one except for her, anyway.
When the phone rings again, I flip it over, curious which client I'm losing tonight.
It's not a client.
Liam's name flashes across the screen.
I consider letting his call go to voicemail, but I hesitate with my finger over the button instead, reluctant to just ignore him. Maybe it's the reminder that, once upon a time, he was my only friend. Or maybe it's because I know that isn't the case anymore.
Whatever friendship we had ended fourteen days ago. I have no illusions about that, just like I have none about why he's calling now. It isn't because he's worried about me. No. He's calling because he's pissed.
If I ignore him, he'll just show up at my door to finish the job the alcohol isn't doing fast enough.
I answer, not because I deserve to keep breathing, but because he doesn't deserve to have my death on his conscience.
"You home?" he asks.
"Didn't you hear? I'm always home," I say. "It's what happens when the whole world realizes you're the fucking devil." I almost ask if Brielle's okay or if something happened, only to remember that something already happened. I happened. And she hasn't been okay since she met me.
"Good. I'm on my way," he growls. "Don't fucking move."
He hangs up.
I look at the phone, my own reflection warped in the glass, and think about calling him back and telling him not to bother. My liver is bound to give up sooner rather than later, right?
Instead, I pour another drink and wait.
Two hours later, the doorbell rings, and then Liam starts pounding on the door hard enough to rattle it on the frame.
I sigh, pulling it open with my glass in hand.
He clearly hasn't gotten much sleep lately. The dark circles under his eyes rival those under mine. He's wrinkled and rumpled in a way he never is, his carefully put-together facade cracked. His usual smile is nowhere in sight.
"You son of a bitch," he snarls, decking me before I can even say hello.
The glass in my hand shatters when it hits the floor, leaving expensive Scotch all over the floor. My lip splits, blood running down my chin. My goddamn ears ring, spots swimming in front of my eyes.
"Fucking hell," I grunt. "Who taught you to hit like that?"
"You did, you arrogant prick." He pushes past me, his hands shaking with fury as he stares at me like he's trying to decide if he wants to knock me out now or make me suffer a little first.
"What do you want, Liam? I'm a little busy here." I gesture at the glass broken all over the floor. "The contents of my bar aren't going to drink themselves."
There's no humor in his laughter. "Fuck your bar and your self-pity, Blackstock. I want to know what you did to my sister."
That pulls me up short. Not because I don't know, but because I do. Because I expected she would have told him the whole ugly story days ago, now. If he's asking me, it's because she hasn't told him, at least not everything.
Why didn't she tell him?
I cross to the bar, pour a drink, and hand it to him. I expect him to refuse it, but he knocks it back like he's dying of thirst.
"She won't talk to anyone," he says. "She won't eat.
She won't sleep. She wouldn't even answer my calls.
I had to hop on a goddamn flight and break into her place just to get her to tell me anything.
All I can get out of her is that she quit because you're an asshole.
" He eyes me critically, fury banked in his eyes.
"Whatever you did this time, you fucking destroyed her. "
"I paid her five million to sleep with me," I say. I'm not trying to shock him. We're past that. I'm just telling him what he needs to know so he can hate me free and clear, too. "I guess she finally realized fucking is all I'm good for."
He doesn't even drop his glass before he hits me again, hard enough to snap my head back. Jesus Christ. He has power behind that fist.
"I told you," he spits, grabbing me by the collar before I land on my ass.
"I fucking told you to leave her alone if you were just going to pull your usual bullshit and act like she doesn't matter.
You don't get to touch her and then pretend it means nothing, Asher.
You don't get to break her just because you're—"
He stops, looking at me like he's trying to figure out precisely what I am or if any of the old version of me remains—the one he met before I saw Brielle for the first time and realized exactly what kind of man I really am.
I think about how many times I swore to him that I'd never hurt her, not even once, not even by accident.
And I realize that no, that old version of me doesn't exist. I don't think it ever did to begin with.
That version was a carefully crafted lie, created to reflect what the world expected me to be. But underneath that mask, I was always this. I was always the motherfucker who coveted what he shouldn't and hurt the things that deserved it least.
Liam shakes his head like he's having the same epiphany. "She's a fucking ghost," he says. "She walks around the apartment like she doesn't even know where she is. It's like you fucking—" His voice breaks.
"Say it."
He grits his teeth.
"Say it, you prick."
"Killed her," he snaps, glaring at me. "It's like you fucking killed her."
That is what I did. Not two weeks ago, but five years ago.
She got into my car full of hope. She left it not breathing.
And even when her heart started beating again, she wasn't the same.
The light was gone from her eyes. She's been going through the motions ever since, pretending she's alive.
He's only just now realizing that she lost the biggest part of herself that night.
No, she didn't lose it. I took it from her.
"She'll get over it," I mutter, no longer sure that's true. I haven't been sure since she walked out, looking through me instead of at me. But I need him to hate me, too. It's what she deserves—for him to never mention my name to her again.
He stares at me. "Do you even hear yourself right now? Or are you just too far gone to give a shit? You didn't just break her heart, you insufferable prick. You destroyed her."
"I'm not the one who left her alone with me, Liam. That was you."
He grabs me by the front of my shirt, slamming me into the wall so hard the drywall cracks behind my head. I don't try to fight back.
"She loves you, you asshole," he hisses, driving his fist into my face again. "She loves you, and you fucking shattered her."
I know what I did to her. That's the worst part.
It made so much fucking sense while I was doing it.
I thought it'd set her free, that she'd finally, finally be rid of me.
I thought if I broke her, I could excise myself from her heart, just cut away the part that held me, and she'd finally be able to move on.
She could be happy again. Except…I think I fucked that up, too.
"I never deserved her love," I say, the truest thing I think I've ever said. "One day, she'll realize it, too."
Liam mutters a curse and then drags me down the hall toward the guest bathroom. I let him, too fucking tired to fight. I don't even fight when he throws me into the tiled shower and turns the water on full blast.
The frigid water hits me like a fist. My clothes soak through immediately, dried blood mixing with the alcohol I've spilled as it swirls down the drain.
The pain is sharp as the water stings my split lip, the gashes he left across my face, and the barely-healed wounds on my hands from the damage I did to my office in LA.
I just sit there, letting it burn.
Liam stands over me, watching with his arms crossed. For a long time, he doesn't say anything. When he finally does speak, his voice is soft, almost gentle.