Page 62 of The Tower (Billionaire Brothers Grimm #1)

“I’m coming with you,” I say, already reaching for clothes.

“No.” His voice is firm, brooking no argument. “You stay here, where it’s safe. Enhanced security is already on the way up. No one gets in or out without clearance.”

“Liam—”

He crosses to the bed, cupping my face in his hands. “Please, Sasha. I need to know you’re safe while I deal with this.”

The intensity in his eyes stops my protest. This isn’t about control—it’s about protection. His desperate need to keep me from harm.

“Okay, but you stay in contact. I want to know exactly what’s happening.”

“I promise.” He kisses me, brief but fierce. “Everything will be fine,” he assures me, though the promise doesn’t reach his eyes. “Stay here. Stay safe.”

The next few hours are excruciating. Ruby joins me, but we don’t talk. Instead, she sits on the sofa while I pace the suite, checking my phone obsessively for updates from Liam, which come in terse, infrequent texts:

Following Victor. In Tribeca.

Heading toward Brooklyn now. Bane separated, going elsewhere. Secondary team following.

He’s stopped. Team’s approaching with caution.

Then, nothing. An hour of silence that stretches my nerves to the breaking point. I call, but it goes straight to voicemail. I text, but there’s no response.

Something is wrong. Terribly, catastrophically wrong.

“You don’t know that,” Ruby says. “Don’t worry until you have to.” Her expression, however, suggests that I should be worrying.

I’m about to ignore Liam’s edict not to leave the suite when my phone finally rings—not Liam’s number, but Leo’s.

“What’s happened?” I demand without preamble. “Where’s Liam?”

“He’s okay,” Leo says, though something in his voice suggests otherwise. “But … There’s been an incident.”

I go cold. “What kind of incident?”

For a moment, he’s silent. Then, “Victor Reed is dead.”

The words hit me like a gut-punch, stealing my breath. “What?”

“Shot once, at close range. The shit had a weapon. He was threatening Liam. There were witnesses.”

Dead. The monster of my childhood, the architect of my captivity, the man who poisoned and manipulated me—gone. Forever.

“So, it was self-defense?” My father tried to kill Liam?

A pause, then, “One-hundred percent.”

It’s the answer I want to hear, but I feel a chill up my spine nonetheless.

“I need to see Liam,” I say, already moving toward the door. “Where is he?”

“Police station in Brooklyn. Giving his statement.” Leo sounds tired, resigned. “I’ll text you the address.”

The ride to the station passes in a blur of conflicting emotions—shock, grief, relief, anger. The father I hate killed by the man I love. The finality of it is both liberating and terrifying. No more looking over my shoulder, no more fear of being recaptured and controlled.

But I heard the truth in Leo’s lie, and now I can’t help but fear that the cost of what Liam did is going to break both of us.

At the station, I’m directed to a small interview room where he’s waiting alone, hands clasped between his knees, head bowed. He looks up when I enter, and the expression on his face cuts straight through me—part relief at seeing me, part dread at what he knows must follow.

“Sasha,” he says, rising to his feet. “You shouldn’t be here.”

I glance around the room. “Can we talk in here?”

His brows rise, and I’m certain he knows what I’m going to ask. He nods.

“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.

There’s a knock at the door, and an officer enters, telling Liam that they’re ready for him. I leave the room with him, then turn the opposite direction and walk toward the exit without saying goodbye.

My father is dead. The man who imprisoned and medicated me, who stole my mother’s legacy, then killed her. A man who treated me as property rather than a person.

That horrible man is gone forever.

The knowledge should bring relief, closure, perhaps even joy. Instead, it brings a complicated tangle of emotions I can’t yet unravel.

Outside, the city is waking, the first hints of dawn painting the eastern sky.

My driver steps out, then opens the door for me. “Reed Tower,” I tell him, then pull out my phone to call and update Ruby.

“There’s going to be fallout from this,” I say after I’ve run it all down for her. “We’ll need to inform the board and get ready.”

“I’ll start working on your press statement.” She pauses. “What are you going to do about Grimm? Can you forgive him?”

“I don’t know,” I say, because it’s the only answer I have. “Right now, I don’t have time to think about it.” And that’s a good thing. Because if I did, I think all I’d be able to do is cry.