Page 59

Knox

T he morning light sliced through the blinds in sharp, unforgiving lines, striping her bare skin like a brand. I woke before Iris, my body still weighed down by exhaustion, but my mind was a live wire—electric, restless, unable to let go of the night before.

She was tangled in my sheets, her hair fanned across my pillow like she belonged there.

Like she’d always belonged there. The rise and fall of her breath was steady, unguarded, and I drank in every detail—the way her lashes fanned over flushed cheeks, the way her lips parted just slightly, like she was still lost in the remnants of whatever dreams had claimed her.

For a moment, just a single fucking moment, I let myself believe this was ours—that the world outside didn’t exist, that the storm waiting for us hadn’t already started to gather. That I wasn’t me, and she wasn’t her, and this wasn’t doomed from the start.

I reached out, brushing a strand of hair from her face, careful, reverent. The act felt dangerous, too soft, too real. She shifted slightly at my touch, sighing in her sleep, and something inside me clenched so fucking hard it nearly took my breath away.

Because this? This wasn’t just heat. Wasn’t just adrenaline and reckless decisions made in the dark. This was need.

Last night, she had looked at me like I was the only thing in the world that made sense.

Like I was something worth believing in.

And it scared the hell out of me. Because what if she woke up and realized she’d made a mistake?

What if she looked at me with regret instead of that wildfire devotion that burned in her eyes when we were alone?

The weight of it settled heavy in my chest, a slow, suffocating dread curling around the edges of my mind. She had wormed her way into places I didn’t even know existed inside me, filling the cracks with something dangerous—hope.

And hope was always the thing that destroyed me in the end.

I watched her for another few seconds, committing this to memory—the way she felt like mine, even when I had no right to claim her.

Because the second she opened her eyes?

Reality would sink its claws back in.

The pounding shattered the quiet like a gunshot, fists hammering against the door with enough force to rattle the walls. My body locked up, every muscle coiling tight, instincts kicking in hard and fast. Protect. Defend. Destroy.

Iris stirred beside me, groggy, pulling the sheet up over her chest. “Who the hell—” she murmured, her voice still thick with sleep.

But I was already moving, yanking on my sweats, pulse slamming against my ribs like a war drum. Something about this felt wrong—not just a late-night mistake or some drunk asshole at the wrong door. It felt like a warning. A threat.

“Stay here.” My voice was low, firm. A command. But I already knew she wouldn’t listen.

The pounding came again, harder this time, relentless and furious. Whoever was on the other side wasn’t stopping until they got what they wanted. And something told me that what they wanted was me.

I stalked toward the door, pressing my ear against the wood. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, drowning out everything else. I couldn’t hear voices. No drunken slurs, no joking threats—just silence in between the violent knocks.

Bad. This was bad.

Another hit, so hard it shook the frame. I exhaled sharply, jaw tight, forcing my pulse to slow. Focus. Don’t react. Plan.

I reached for the handle.

Whoever was on the other side?

They were about to regret knocking on this door.

I ripped the door open, every muscle in my body coiled tight, ready to lay into whoever thought they could come pounding on my door in the middle of the night.

But when I saw him standing there—my father, his expression carved from stone—something in my chest lurched.

“Tell me it’s not true.”

The words landed like a fist to the gut. No preamble. No wasted breath. Just straight to the kill shot.

My pulse thundered in my ears as the weight of it crashed down. I didn’t need to ask what he meant. Chris fucking talked. Or maybe it wasn’t just him—maybe the whispers had already spread, morphing into something bigger, something neither Iris nor I could outrun.

The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. My father didn’t move. His gaze pinned me in place, sharp and unyielding, demanding the truth like he could tear it straight out of my ribs if I didn’t spit it out myself.

“Knox.” His voice was controlled, too controlled, like he was fighting to keep it from breaking loose. “You can’t be serious.”

My jaw locked, tension winding through every inch of me. The truth was a noose tightening around my throat. I could barely breathe under the weight of it. “It’s not what you think.” The words felt weak, hollow, even as they left my mouth.

His expression didn’t shift. If anything, it hardened. “Then tell me what it is.”

I exhaled sharply, the sound harsh in the dead silence between us. My father, the man who had shaped my entire career, was staring at me like I was one bad decision away from becoming a complete disappointment.

“Iris is…” Her name caught in my throat, jagged and painful, because saying it out loud made this too fucking real. “She’s important to me.”

His jaw ticked. A slow shake of his head. A small, bitter laugh—humorless and sharp. “Important,” he echoed, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Like I had completely lost my mind. Then his voice dropped, quiet and razor-sharp. “This isn’t just a fling?”

And I knew then—he’d been hoping it was. Hoping that this was nothing more than a reckless mistake he could yank me out of before it burned everything down around us.

But it wasn’t.

And we both knew it.

“She’s not just a girl,” I snapped, the words slamming into the space between us, fueled by something deeper than anger—something territorial. Protective. The undeniable truth that I wasn’t walking away from this, not now, not ever.

He crossed his arms, his gaze narrowing into something colder, something more dangerous. “You think Chambers is just going to let this slide? You think you’re going to walk away from this clean?”

And that was when it hit me—this wasn’t just about Iris anymore.

It was about everything.

And it was already coming down around us.

He stepped inside; the air shifting the second the door clicked shut behind him. The room felt smaller, heavier—like the walls had closed in, locking me inside with something far worse than an opponent on the ice. His presence was a weight pressing down on me, suffocating, demanding.

His voice cut through the silence like a blade, low and precise. “Chris came to me. Told me everything. You and Evans. The fight. The fucking disaster you’ve created—again.”

A slow exhale burned through my chest as I crossed my arms, every muscle locking down tight. The storm was already inside me, twisting, seething—but my father’s voice stoked it into something bigger, something barely contained beneath my skin.

I met his gaze head-on, but that only made it worse. The disappointment there was sharper than any hit I’d ever taken. I had seen that look before—back when I lost everything.

When I ruined everything.

The memory sank its teeth into me, a ghost of the last time I had let him down. Of the moment I stopped being his prodigy and became his burden instead.

Not again.

“What do you want me to say?” I bit out, my voice tight, barely controlled. “That I regret it? That I’d take it back?” I scoffed, shaking my head. “I don’t.”

His silence stretched, loaded with expectation—waiting for me to crack, waiting for me to give him the answer he wanted. But I was done giving him that power.

“Knox.” His tone dropped, a razor’s edge wrapped in something dangerously close to concern. “This isn’t just about you anymore. It’s about her future too.”

Her.

Iris’s name wasn’t even spoken, but I felt it land in my chest like a gunshot. My pulse kicked up, my heart pounding hard against my ribs as I fought the instinct to react. To defend. To claim.

“She’s tough,” I said instead, my voice flat but edged with something raw. “She can handle herself.”

His eyes sharpened. “But can you?” He leaned in slightly, never breaking eye contact. “Can you handle this? Or are you going to drag her down with your bullshit?”

My fists clenched. That twisted something deep inside me, sending a surge of heat through my veins.

He didn’t get it. He didn’t fucking get it.

I wasn’t dragging her down—I was holding her up.

“I’m not dragging anyone down,” I shot back, my control slipping. I was losing my grip on this conversation. On the way my father had always known how to tear me apart from the inside out.

He exhaled sharply, running a hand over his jaw before fixing me with that same cold, cutting stare. “You’re losing control.”

And for the first time, I wondered if he was right.

The bedroom door creaked open, and there she was—wrapped in my shirt, bare legs peeking out beneath the hem, hair a wild mess from sleep. She looked so fucking beautiful it hurt. Sunlight poured in behind her, tracing the edges of her figure like something out of a dream.

But Callahan’s gaze cut through the room like a blade.

“Jesus Christ…”

The words landed like a gunshot.

The air turned sharp, thick with unspoken accusations as my father’s stare locked onto Iris. I felt it—his disappointment, his disbelief, his fury—all of it slamming into me at once, a storm I couldn’t outrun.

He wasn’t just seeing her. He was seeing the scandal. The headlines. The wreckage of what this could become. He saw a girl meant for more than this—more than me—standing in the center of a disaster she didn’t even fully realize she had stepped into.

And maybe that was the worst part.

But then she moved.

Iris stepped forward, spine straight, chin high, unapologetic. No shrinking. No shame. The fire in her eyes burned right through my father’s judgment, and when she spoke, her voice was steady, unwavering.

“Sir, with all due respect… you’re wrong.”