Chapter 15 #2
"Don't call me that." The words come out stronger now. Steadier. She's finding her footing, her hands curling into fists at her sides. Her jaw sets with a defiance that makes my chest ache with pride. "You don't get to call me that anymore."
"Right. Because you belong to my brother now."
Jonah's gaze swings to me, and the tenderness evaporates into pure venom.
"Tell me, Drake. How long did you wait before you made your move on what I own? A month? A week? Or were you circling her the whole time we were together?"
He knows it’s nothing like that, but he’s baiting me.
The truth burns in my chest. I wanted her the whole fucking time, but I kept my distance. Again, he’s baiting me into a fight. He doesn’t care about the truth.
"Katriana came to Scarlet Thorn with a wish a few weeks ago. I granted it. That's how this works." He doesn’t need to know about the finer details.
"Bullshit." Jonah slams his palm against the table, making Katriana flinch. "You've wanted her since the moment you met her. I saw the way you looked at her at family dinners. Like she was something to be devoured. I finally had something you wanted and you couldn’t stand it."
"Jonah, stop." Katriana's voice cuts through the tension.
"This isn't about Drake. This is about you being unable to accept that you don’t own me.
You dumped me, remember. You are the one who said I was a cold bitch and your dick was too good for a piece of trash like me.
Do you remember saying those things to me?
Because I remember every poisonous syllable you forced me to listen to as you gripped my throat and nearly squeezed the life out of me. "
The longer she lays out her truth, the redder her face becomes. It takes everything I have not to get up and wrap my arms around her and shield my woman from the ugly that is my brother. But she looks like she need to face him and I am happy to provide her that safety.
"You were a scared dirty little poor mouse who jumped at her own shadow. I needed a real woman. Someone who could stand at my side and didn’t try to keep her virginity as something to hold over me. You were too scared to give me what I needed."
"What you needed?" She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You needed someone to stroke your ego and ignore your affairs and pretend I didn't notice when you came home smelling like other women's perfume."
"I came home smelling like other women because you wouldn't—"
"Careful." The word leaves my mouth like a blade. Low. Deadly. "Choose your next words very carefully, brother."
Jonah's jaw works with fury. He looks between me and Katriana, and I watch something shift in his eyes. Something dark and desperate and dangerously unstable.
"You know what? I didn't come here for a business deal." He shoves the folder aside, sending papers scattering across the table. "I came here to see for myself. To confirm what I saw the other night at the restaurant wasn’t a figment of my imagination. Well, I got what I wanted."
"What?" Katriana asks.
"I saw you all cuddly and kissing up on my brother like a fucking slut.
I never thought I'd see the day where Drake Moses claimed my leftovers.
" Jonah's lips curl into a sneer. "That the great and powerful king of the docks is so desperate for an heir he had to poach his brother's ex-girlfriend like the fucking slut she is. "
I'm on my feet before I realize I've moved. "Watch your mouth."
"Or what? You'll have your men throw me out? Beat me bloody?" Jonah spreads his arms wide, mocking. "Go ahead. Prove what we both know is true. That you're nothing but a thug in an expensive suit."
"Jonah, please." Katriana steps between us, her hands raised like she's trying to calm two snarling dogs. "This doesn't have to—"
"Stay out of this, Kat." Jonah's voice turns ugly. "The adults are talking."
"Don't speak to her like that." My control is slipping. I can feel the rage building in my chest, pressing against my ribs, demanding release. "She's not yours to dismiss." I am trying really fucking hard not to show her how dark my soul really is. Katriana deserves the best of me.
"She's not yours either." Jonah steps closer, his face inches from mine. "No matter how many times you fuck her, no matter how many pretty things you buy her, she'll always remember which Moses had her first. Who taught her what she knows."
“Jonah, I never slept with you. Stop baiting your brother.”
"You didn't teach her anything except how to survive a man who didn't deserve her."
Jonah's fist swings toward my face.
I catch it easily, his knuckles stopping an inch from my jaw. His eyes widen with surprise. He's always been slower than me, softer than me, and he seems to have forgotten that fact in his fury.
I twist his arm behind his back and force him to his knees.
"Listen carefully." My voice is quiet, controlled, but beneath it simmers a violence I'm barely containing. "Katriana is mine. If you go near her, speak to her, breathe in her direction, I will end you. Brother or not."
I release him. He staggers to his feet, his face red with humiliation and rage.
Movement catches my eye. Katriana is backing toward the door, her hand reaching for the handle. Smart girl. Get out while you can. Let me handle this.
But Jonah sees her too.
And everything happens very fast.
His hand goes to his waistband. Metal glints under the fluorescent lights. A gun, small and black, appears in his grip like it was always there, waiting for this moment.
He swings it toward Katriana.
"Don't think about touching that door handle, bitch."
The word hits me like a physical blow. The world narrows to a single point of focus: the barrel of that gun aimed at the woman I love.
Yes. Love. I know it now with a certainty that burns through every other thought in my head. I love her, and my brother is pointing a weapon at her chest, and if he so much as twitches his finger toward that trigger, I will tear him apart with my bare hands.
"Jonah." My voice comes out calm, deadly, completely at odds with the inferno raging inside me. "Put the gun down."
"No." His hand is shaking, but his aim stays fixed on Katriana. She's frozen by the door, her eyes wide behind her glasses, her breath coming in short, panicked bursts. "No, I don't think I will. For once in my life, I'm the one holding the power."
"You don't want to do this."
"Don't tell me what I want!" Spittle flies from his lips. "You've been telling me what I want my whole life. What I should think, how I should act, who I should be. The perfect brother, always watching, always judging, always so fucking disappointed."
"Jonah." Katriana's voice trembles, but she forces the words out despite her fear.
Pride swells in my chest.
"Please. Put it down. Whatever happened between us, whatever you think I did wrong, I don't deserve this."
"You don't deserve this?" He laughs, wild and broken. "I gave you everything. I tried to make you happy and be whatever imagine you had in your head of the perfect boyfriend. And you gave me nothing. Nothing! You wouldn't even let me touch you. All I wanted to do was…"
His words trail off. He nearly let his truth slip.
All he wanted to do was break her and use her for entertainment amongst his friends.
The truth is Katriana was one in many I watched him break.
I didn’t do anything for the others because I was too deep into my own problems. But I got lucky with Katriana.
She came back into my life by fate or sheer luck and I am not about to ruin my second chance. I will not let anything happen to her.
"I didn't want to." Her chin lifts despite her fear. "Because my body belongs to me, not to whoever demands it."
"Your body belongs to my brother now, apparently." Jonah's gun hand steadies, his finger moving toward the trigger. "Maybe I should take what I never got. Maybe I should show Drake what it feels like to have something precious ripped away."
I move.
The distance between us disappears in two strides.
My hand closes around his wrist and wrenches upward just as the gun goes off.
The shot buries itself in the ceiling, raining plaster down on us like snow.
I twist his arm until something pops, and his scream is the most satisfying sound I've heard in years.
The gun clatters to the floor. I kick it away without looking.
Then I destroy him.
My fist connects with his face. Once. Twice. Three times. His nose cracks under my knuckles. Blood sprays across my shirt, across the scattered papers, across the polished conference table. I hit him again and his lip splits. Again and bone cracks along his jaw.
He crumples to the floor, moaning, and I follow him down.
My knee pins his chest. My hand grips his throat and I make sure our eyes lock when I tell him, "I warned you, brother.
I warned you." My words come out barely human.
A primal growl that doesn't care about blood or brotherhood or the promises I made to our mother.
"Ending you will kill me inside, but you need to know I pick her over you every day of the week. You will address her with respect. Period. See her walking down the street, you better make sure she never sees you. Disappear from her life and if you ever need me for anything again, don’t. "
"I'm sorry," he gasps, blood bubbling from his ruined nose. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"
"You didn't mean what? To threaten a woman who wanted nothing but to earn your trust and give it back in kind? You didn’t what? Want to prove you're exactly the piece of shit I always knew you were, but gave you ample opportunity to grow?"
I squeeze harder and watch his eyes bulge. His windpipe flexes beneath my grip.
Our mother asked me to protect him. Begged me, in those final weeks when the cancer was eating her alive, to take care of my baby brother. To keep him safe. To guide him toward something better than the darkness that consumed our father.
I failed her. Or maybe Jonah failed himself. Either way, the boy I raised is gone, replaced by this bitter, broken man who would murder an innocent woman to punish me for crimes I never committed.
"Drake."
Katriana's voice cuts through the red haze.
"Drake, stop. Please. He's not worth it. Don’t do this. You can never come back from that line if you cross it."
I look up. She's moved away from the door, closer to me, her face pale but composed. Her eyes hold fear, and it drives a cold-blooded need to squeeze harder until Jonah pays for putting that fear in her eyes.
"I'm okay," she says softly. "You stopped him in time. I'm okay."
Her soft voice forces the rage to recede. It pulls back like a slow-moving tide, leaving me shaking with the effort of containing it. I release Jonah's throat and rise to my feet, my chest heaving, and my knuckles screaming with pain.
Blood drips from my split lip. My ribs ache where his elbow caught me somewhere in the chaos. I don't remember the impact.
Kon appears at the door, his expression grim, his hand resting on the weapon at his hip. Behind him, Luca hovers with the same coiled readiness, waiting for my command.
"Get him out of here." My voice is steadier now, but only just. "He's no longer welcome at Redthorne. Make sure security revokes his access."
"Where do you want him?" Kon asks.
I look down at my brother. He's curled on the floor, blood pooling beneath his ruined face, his body shaking with sobs or pain or both. The boy I raised. The man who would have killed the woman I love.
"Dump him somewhere he'll be found. Somewhere that will remind him of exactly how far he's fallen.
" I crouch down, forcing Jonah to meet my eyes.
"Listen to me very carefully. You are no longer my brother.
You have no family. No name. No protection.
If I see you again, if you come near Katriana again, I won't stop. Do you understand? All you had to do was act civil. You shouldn’t have pulled the gun on her. "
He nods, a jerky movement that sends fresh blood dripping from his chin.
"Get out of my sight."
Kon and Luca haul him to his feet and drag him toward the door. Just before they disappear into the hallway, Jonah turns his head and looks at me one last time.
The hatred in his eyes is absolute. Unforgivable. Final.
Good. Now we understand each other.
The door closes behind them, and I'm alone with Katriana.
She's trembling. The adrenaline fading, the reality of what just happened crashing over her in waves. I cross the room in three strides and pull her into my arms.
She doesn't resist. Doesn't stiffen. She melts against me, her face pressed to my chest, her fingers curling into the blood-stained fabric of my shirt.
"You're okay." I murmur the words into her hair, breathing in the vanilla and cotton scent of her, letting it wash away the last of the killing rage. "You're safe. I've got you."
"I know." Her voice is muffled against my chest. "I knew I would be okay. The moment he raised that gun, I knew."
The trust in those words breaks something open inside me.
"Come on." I guide her toward the door, keeping her face turned away from the blood on the floor. "We're done here for today."