CHAPTER 076: Pound Of Flesh
Knox is out the door before I can convince him otherwise.
I run after him, nearly slipping as I rush down the hallway. He’s already halfway down by the time I make it to the top of the steps.
“Knox!” I yell. “Stop!”
But he’s not listening. His body is tight with fury, all his restraint long gone.
By the time I push through the lobby door, he’s outside, and so is Joe, the night–duty security guard. Joe’s hands are braced on his hips, looking like he’s trying to decide whether to intervene or call it in. Knox is already on Finn.
His fist connects with Finn’s face, and Finn stumbles back, slamming into the body of Knox’s car with a loud grunt. His casted arm hangs uselessly at his side, and before he can even catch his balance, Knox grabs him by the collar and throws another punch. Then another.
The blows are brutal. Unrelenting. Finn’s head snaps back, his body jerking with each hit like a ragdoll.
I scream, “Stop! Stop it, Knox, please!”
My feet are moving before I register it, crossing the street, dodging the pieces of glass from the busted window still on the asphalt. I reach him just as his fist cocks back again.
I wrap my arms around him from behind, burying my face in his back.
“Please. Stop it. Stop.”
I feel the way his body stiffens beneath me. Feel the tension in his spine, the barely controlled rage vibrating through his muscles. He doesn’t move at first. Just breathes, heavy and hard, as though every exhale is fighting the instinct to keep going.
Finn rolls over to his side, groaning. His lip is split, his eye is swelling shut, and blood is visible along his jaw. He spits onto the crumpled hood of the car, right on the windshield he just shattered, and a tooth goes with it.
“Don’t stop now,” he says, coughing. “You’ve already taken everything I love from me. Might as well end it. Kill me, you son of a bitch.”
From somewhere behind us, Joe speaks up.
“Sloane… should I call the cops?”
“No,” I say quickly, shaking my head. “No, please. It’s just… a misunderstanding.”
Joe doesn’t look convinced. Neither do the people poking their heads out of windows above us. They’re watching like it’s a late–night movie premiere. One woman in a
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bonnet whispers something to someone behind her. A child presses their face to the glass.
I grip Knox’s arm and start to pull.him back. “Come on,” I say. “Let’s go. He’s not worth
it.”
He doesn’t resist, but his glare stays on Finn, jaw clenched like he’s memorizing every bloodied inch of his brother’s face.
“You’re so damn lucky she still cares about you,” Knox mutters. “Otherwise you’d be leaving in a worse state than that car.”
Finn coughs again, sitting up. “How much did you pay her?” he calls after us. “Huh, Knox? How much did you pay Delilah to leave me?”
I freeze. Knox stops too.
Finn’s voice rises. “Is that what you did with Sloane? Paid her to hang around you? Because nobody loves you unless they’re paid to?”
“Shut up,” I say over my shoulder. “Go home, Finn.”
He ignores me. “It’s not my fault everyone wants me. It’s not my fault I’m lovable and you’re not. She’s going to leave you, you know. Your precious Sloane. Everyone leaves you, Knox.”
I turn, furious. “Go. Home. Right. Now.”
“I don’t want to. I want him to finish it. Let him be a man and kill me like he’s wanted to for years.”
“If you keep pissing him off, you might just get your wish.”
Behind me, Knox takes a step forward.
I throw my arm out to stop him again. “Don’t.”
He breathes through his nose like a bull trying not to charge.
Finn just stands there, and even from this distance, I can see it happening, his face folding in on itself. He’s crying. I don’t have to be close to know it.
And the worst part?
Some small, traitorous part of me wants to go to him. Like old times. Like muscle memory. Wrap my arms around him and tell him it’s okay, even when it’s not. Even when he’s the one causing the chaos.
But I stop myself.
That’s the fixer in me taking over. My Finn–fixing radar is on high alert, and I’m telling it to stand down.
A cab crawls by, headlights bouncing across the pavement. Finn lifts a hand, and it
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pulls to the curb like it was summoned by fate itself.
He opens the door and pauses, looking back at us, eyes red, jaw set.
“There’ll be no rest for the both of you unless I’m no longer alive,” he says. “You don’t get to play the victim anymore, Knox. We’re even now. You got your pound of flesh for what happened to Lydia when you stole Sloane and Delilah from me. Next move is
mine.”
The moment that name, Lydia, leaves Finn’s lips, I feel Knox shift.
“Don’t you dare mention her name,” Knox says.
“Or what, Knox?”
I turn and block Knox with my whole body this time, palms against his chest. “Let it go.”
The cab door shuts. Tires roll against the curb as it pulls off. Knox’s eyes track it until it disappears.
Then, without a word, he turns and stalks back to the apartment. He moves fast. I run to catch up.
