Page 142 of The Tower

“Was it really self-defense?” I hear the prayer in my voice. The hope that somehow, I’ve misinterpreted everything.

His gaze doesn’t waver. “That’s what the police report will say.”

In other words, no.

No excuses. No justifications. Just the simple, devastating truth that makes my heart crack open.

“Why?” The word emerges as barely more than a whisper.

“He was planning to take you,” Liam says, his voice flat, emotionless. “Tonight. He had Bane and a team of mercenaries ready. They were all set up to slide in with Grimm security. They anticipated we’d stay at my suite once this ball started rolling, and the plan was to snatch you there.”

Snatch. I shiver. Both from what could have happened … and what did.

“How do you know all this?”

“Leo intercepted communications. He got one of the mercs to talk. By the time I had confirmation, Victor was already moving.” His expression hardens. “I couldn’t let him take you. Not again. Not ever.”

“So you killed him.” The words hang in the air between us, heavy with implication.

“I confronted him. He had a gun. It happened.”

But we both know the truth behind the carefully constructed narrative. Liam tracked my father down and eliminated the threat permanently. Not in the heat of the moment, not in immediate self-defense, but as a calculated decision to protect me once and for all.

“You should have told me,” I say, anger flaring suddenly. “You should have discussed it with me. My father, my life, my choice. Not yours.”

“There wasn’t time⁠—”

“Bullshit,” I cut him off, stepping closer as fury overtakes shock. “Dammit, Grimm, we talked about this, and then you just decided without me, anyway. Without even giving me the chance to weigh in. I told you I wanted him arrested. That I wanted to face the bastard in court, to have the world know exactly what he did to me.”

“Sasha—”

“All your empty fucking promises, and still you took that from me. Decided for me, just like he always did. So you tell me, Liam, how the fuck are you better than my bastard of a father?”

He flinches as if struck, and I know my words have cut deep. “That’s not⁠—”

“You went out there planning to kill him. To eliminate the threat. To handle it.”

He doesn’t deny it, which somehow makes it worse. “I couldn’t risk losing you,” he says simply. “I couldn’t take the chance that he might take you back into that nightmare.”

The raw honesty in his voice defuses some of my anger, morphing it into something more complicated. Grief for a father I never really had. Confusion over moral lines that have been irreparably blurred.

“What happens now?” I finally ask.

“Legally? Nothing.” He looks exhausted, the strain of the night evident in every line of his face. “The evidence supports self-defense. There were witnesses—including Victor’s own people—who were more than happy to turn on him when the police arrived. I’ll give my statement, and that will be that.”

“I’m not talking about legally,” I clarify. “I’m talking about us.”

His eyes meet mine, vulnerable in a way I’ve rarely seen. “That depends on you,” he says quietly. “On whether what I’ve done is … unforgivable.”

The question hangs between us, demanding an answer I don’t have. Do I walk away from the man who killed my father? The man who went to extremes to protect me? The man who, despite his methods, acted out of love?

But he’s also a man who knew I wanted to confront my father—to see him ripped to shreds in a court of law—but killed him anyway, nullifying my decision and stealing my choice with one blast of a gun.

Is that a man I can forgive? And even if I can, is that a man with whom I want to move forward?

“I need time,” I say finally. “To process all of this. To figure out how I feel. Because dammit, Grimm, this one cuts deep. We just fucking talked about this.”

“I know,” he says, accepting this with the same grace he showed during our earlier separation. And that’s infuriating as hell, too.