Kai
Ifind him where I knew he’d be—leaning against that piss-stained wall outside the dive, a cigarette glowing between his fingers like he thinks he’s untouchable. His smirk is already carved into his face before I even step into the light.
“Well, well,” he drawls, dragging smoke into his lungs like he’s bored, like I’m nothing. “Guess the little sister didn’t tell you everything, huh? She begs for it.”
The rest of his sentence never sees daylight because my fist does. The crunch of knuckles to jaw reverberates up my arm—pure satisfaction. Tyler stumbles, coughs blood into the gutter, still laughing.
I don’t answer. My answer is another punch—sharper, deliberate—splitting his lip wider. He slams into the wall, head snapping back. The cigarette skitters across the concrete, ember dying.
“Keep talking,” I rasp, chest heaving, every nerve on fire. “I want to hear you choke on it.”
And he does. He chuckles, wheezing. “She—she liked it.”
My boot connects with his ribs. Once. Twice. Three times. Slow. Methodical. Each kick wrings a grunt, a cough, another stain on the pavement. I don’t stop. Not yet. I savour it—the way his body folds, the way he still tries to grin through the blood slicking his teeth.
“You think you’re a man?” I crouch, fist in his collar, yanking him upright so I can spit the words into his swollen face. “A man doesn’t need to hide in the dark to touch what isn’t his.”
He groans, breath rattling—and still he smirks. “Guess that makes you worse than me.”
The smirk doesn’t last. I knock his skull against the brick, slow and steady—once, twice—until the sound changes from arrogance to panic. Until his laugh curdles into a scream.
And still—it isn’t enough.
Because I need him to feel every second of this.
His laugh is a splinter under my skin. He spits blood on the ground, a crooked grin flashing in the dark like he doesn’t understand what he’s just signed.
“You think she loves you? She told me things. Cried in my arms. Begged me to stop—oh wait, you like it when she begs, don’t you?”
I drive my boot into his ribs, slow, measured. The crack echoes—a wet sound swallowed by the night. He wheezes and still smiles.
I crouch low, fist tangled in his hair, dragging his head back so he has to look at me. His pupils swim with pain, his lip split open, and still he doesn’t shut up. “She’ll always remember me touching her first.”
I slam his skull against the wall. Not enough to end him—enough to remind him he’s breakable. He groans, spits a tooth onto the pavement.
“Keep talking,” I rasp, voice steady even as my hands shake with the need to finish him. “Every word out of your mouth makes it easier for me.”
His grin falters. Just for a second.
I lean in, forehead to his, the stink of blood and beer between us. “You marked her, Tyler. So I’m going to mark you back. Slow. So you’ll never forget me every time you try to breathe.”
I grind his face into the brick until the skin peels raw. My knuckles are already split, blood slick between my fingers, but I don’t stop. I want him in pieces. I want him to remember this beating more than he remembers touching her.
He coughs and laughs again—weak, wet. “She screamed, Kai. Screamed for me.”
My fist hammers into him. Over and over. My vision tunnels red.
And still I don’t kill him. Not yet.
Killing him would be mercy.
My knuckles are split wide open, skin hanging, blood soaking into Tyler’s shirt with every blow. I barely feel the sting anymore; all I hear is the crunch of cartilage, the wet choke of his breath as I slam his head against the gravel again and again.
“You think you can touch her?” My voice is shredded, a growl ripped from somewhere deeper than my chest. “You think you can crawl into her phone, into her fucking head, and I wouldn’t find out?”
He laughs—or maybe it’s a cough—but it’s enough to make me drive my fist into his jaw until his body jerks like a puppet.
“Kai!”
Her voice. Splintered. Breaking.
It rips straight through me.
I whip my head up, breath tearing through my chest—and there she is. Scarlett. Stumbling into the alley, hair wild, eyes wide like she’s staring at something unholy. She’s shaking, arms crossed like she doesn’t know if she’s shielding herself from the night air or from me.
“Don’t—” she chokes, voice too thin, too wrecked. “Kai, stop, you’re killing him.”
My grip tightens around Tyler’s throat until his body spasms beneath me. Every instinct screams to finish it, to crush until there’s nothing left of him to haunt her. But her voice—fuck, her voice—keeps pulling me back, raw and desperate, reminding me who’s watching.
I look up at her through bloodshot eyes, hand still pressing down, and the world tilts: my girl standing there, shaking, whispering my name like I’m the monster she’s always feared.
“Go home,” I rasp, blood on my lips. “You shouldn’t see this.”
But I can’t make my hand let go.
Not yet.
Not while he’s still breathing.
Scar’s voice is a ghost in the back of my head—begging—but when I glance at her, she’s rooted to the spot, hands over her mouth, mascara blurred down her cheeks. Frozen. Watching me ruin him.
And I do.
My knuckles are split raw, slick with Tyler’s blood. Every time I drive them into his face, I hear the echo of her scream—the way she shook in my arms when she finally told me. Every crack of bone feels like an answer, a penance, a promise.
He wheezes, coughs red onto the ground, tries to laugh, tries to form her name—and that’s when I see her flinch like he still has power. Like even bleeding under me, he’s still inside her head.
“No,” I snarl, voice torn. My hand closes on his throat, squeezing until his laugh cuts off into a rasp. “You don’t get to say her name again. Ever.”
Behind me, Scar chokes on a sob. “Kai, please—”
But she doesn’t move. She doesn’t run to him. She doesn’t run from me. She just stares—paralysed—as if she knows this is the point of no return.
I lean close, forehead pressed to Tyler’s broken face, and whisper through my teeth, “She’s mine. Every piece of her. And you’ll never touch her again.”
His body jerks beneath me, weakening.
Scar makes a sound—half scream, half plea—and it cuts straight through me. My grip tightens anyway.
Tyler’s last breath rattles wet and shallow against my palm. His eyes roll back, mouth spilling blood and spit, and I feel it—the way his chest stutters beneath me, searching for air that isn’t coming.
And still I don’t stop.
My grip clamps tighter, knuckles white, the veins in my arm straining.
I can feel Scar’s scream behind me, the way it shakes the night, but it’s distant—muted by the roar in my skull, the pulse thundering in my ears.
I keep squeezing until his kicks weaken, until his hands stop clawing at my wrist, until there’s nothing left but limp flesh under my rage.
But even then, I don’t let go.
I keep crushing—shaking him once, twice—because I need him to feel me inside his last second. Because it isn’t enough that he’s gone. I need him erased. Eradicated.
“Mine,” I growl, forehead pressed to his slack, bloody face, voice broken and hoarse. “She’s mine. She’ll always be mine.”
Scar sobs somewhere behind me, choked and hysterical, whispering my name like she doesn’t recognise me anymore.
But I can’t hear her.
All I hear is the silence where his breathing used to be.
All I feel is the throb of my pulse and the blood cooling on my hands.
And I still don’t let go.