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I should have looked after him.
It’s my fault.
Would Chuck have come for us if not for the sale?
For the bitcoins still in Kenno’s wallet?
Was it revenge? Pride? What was it?
The motivation?
Why?
“You’re shaking, sweetheart.” I look up at Mum, my mind filled with these questions, where my lips are so arid and useless the words don’t reach them.
The man with the sandy-brown hair sighs, pain wrapped around his breath. “I’m Konnor, by the way,” he utters hoarsely. “Xander’s… half-brother. On our dad’s side, thank fuck.”
I smile stiffly, working my lips to introduce myself. “Kaya. Xander’s girlfriend.”
It’s nice to say aloud.
Painful, too.
My eyes roam the spacious waiting room, finding Clay Butcher conversing with a trembling man in a white coat—a doctor. It must be scary. To be the man responsible for his brother’s life. Even with his back to me, Clay Butcher’s power electrifies the air. He could be an immortal in the way he moves—the authority he holds is in his posture, in his relaxed, unhurried movements, in the pristine suit—untouched.
Untouchable.
The untouchable Clay Butcher.
If he is here, then where is Chuck? AndGrayson.
The men from earlier must have been his, so while I ponder this, I already know in my hollow stomach—Clay Butcher is the Don ofCosa Nostraand he fixes problems.
They have beenfixed.
Clay turns to face me, his gaze meeting mine. Tears rise over my vision of Clay Butcher, eyes raw, bloodshot, and glassy. In so much pain. Somehow, murder from a man like him is a simpler feat to accept than his tears. Nothing is more terrifying than seeing a man like him on the brink of an utter meltdown. Losing Xander…
My lips wobble.
What do his tears mean?
Is his brother…
Is he already dead?
Was he?
The sound of heavy footsteps cut Clay’s stare to the hospital corridor. I follow his line of sight to Luca Butcher, who stops midstride under the arresting gaze of his eldest son.
He left them—left Xander. He looks strange, too; with his salt and pepper hair finger-racked and his shirt open at the collar where a tie would usually dangle. The stoic, controlled Luca Butcher looks wild and unkempt. Not at all like the invulnerable man I thought he was, but on the cusp of ruin.
My lungs burn.
My mum’s hands soothe.
I slide upward, sitting high. My movements stir Max from his tormented position, lifting his head, a gaze swollen with bubbling anger shoots over his shoulder. Konnor looks, too, more concerned than angry.
The three of us watch Butch approach Clay with heavy steps—the weight of every mistake bearing him down—and his bludgeoned heart is mere tatters on his unbuttoned sleeve.
