Chapter 234
[ 914 words ]
CONTENT WARNING
This Chapter contains themes of attempted murder, violence, death, psychological distress, trauma responses, and graphic descriptions of a fatal fall. Reader discretion is advised.
Please take care while reading.
Twenty stories below, on the grey concrete of the side alley, was a dark, crumpled shape.
Katia stared at it. The human brain, when confronted with sudden, violent reality, has a built-in delay. For three full seconds, she thought it was a discarded coat. She thought someone had dropped garbage from a window. Then she saw the boots. She saw the angle of the head, the dark pool of red beginning to spread across the asphalt, and the white hair that she had spent eighteen months watching in deposition rooms.
It was Victor.
Her throat went completely dry. She tried to take a breath, but her lungs refused to expand. The sky above felt low, heavy, and crushing. She didn’t drop her phone; she simply held it against her side, her knuckles white, her body paralyzed by a cold, numbing shock that went straight to her bones. She hadn’t pushed him. She hadn’t even known he was there. But the sheer randomness of it—the fact that she had been two inches from being the one on that asphalt—made the concrete beneath her feet feel like it was tilting.
The fire door slammed open.
Sam came running out onto the roof, her face flushed, her breathing frantic. “Katia! Katia, security just called—they saw someone on the camera feed bypass the lobby elevator p>
Sam stopped dead.
She saw Katia standing at the railing, her skin the color of skimmed milk, her eyes wide and unblinking as she stared down into the alley. Sam crossed the gravel in a sprint, her hands gripping Katia’s shoulders, pulling her back from the edge.
“Katia, look at me. What happened? Who was here p>
Katia couldn’t speak. She slowly raised her hand and pointed down.
Sam leaned over, looked once, and let out a sharp, choked gasp, her hand instantly going over her mouth. “Oh my god. Oh my god, Katia. Did he—did you p>
“I didn’t touch him,” Katia whispered. The words felt like dry gravel on her tongue. “My phone rang. I stepped forward. He… he wasn’t there anymore p>
Sam’s grip on her tightened, her fingers shaking. “We need to go. We need to go down right now. I’m calling the police p>
“No,” Katia said. She couldn’t move her legs. “I can’t walk, Sam. My legs… they won’t move p>
The sirens hadn’t even started in the distance when the fire door opened a second time.
Julian Windsor walked out.
He wasn’t in his suit jacket. His sleeves were rolled up, his hair messy from the wind, his face completely pale. His security team had been monitoring Victor’s vehicle; they had flagged the breach three minutes after Victor entered the building, and Julian had driven his car over the Brooklyn Bridge like a man who had decided that traffic laws didn’t apply to the survival of his wife.
He didn’t look at the railing. He didn’t look at Sam. He looked only at Katia.
He saw the shock on her face, the way her body was shaking under her grey wool coat, and the dead, empty stare in her eyes. He crossed the roof in four long strides, shoving Sam aside without a word, and hauled Katia into his chest.
He pulled her in so hard the buttons of his shirt dug into her cheek. His arms were like iron bands, locking her against his body, his head dropping into her neck as he breathed her in. He was shaking. Julian Windsor, who had spent thirty-four years managing every situation and every emotion with the cold precision of a machine, was trembling so hard Katia could feel his heart thundering against her ribs.
“I have you,” he rasped, his voice raw, stripped of the professional composure. “I have you, Katia. You’re here. You’re safe p>
Katia let her head fall against his shoulder. The numbness in her legs began to recede, replaced by a sudden, violent trembling as the shock finally broke. She didn’t cry, but she gripped the fabric of his shirt with both hands, hanging onto him as if the entire building was beginning to fall away beneath them.
“He almost… Julian, I didn’t even know,” she whispered into his neck. “I didn’t even know he was behind me p>
Julian’s grip tightened until it was nearly painful. He looked over her head at Sam, his eyes dark, wild, and filled with a murderous, protective fury that made Sam step back.
“Get the car,” Julian ordered Sam. His voice was a low, terrifying growl. “We are leaving before the police arrive. My legal team will handle the statement. I am taking her to the estate p>
Sam nodded quickly, her own hands shaking as she pulled out her phone. “The doorman… the cameras p>
“I’ve already taken care of the feed,” Julian said. “The car is in the basement. Move p>
He lifted Katia off her feet, his arms supporting her weight completely as she let her head bury into his chest. He carried her toward the stairwell, his strides long and certain, leaving the empty roof and the quiet, broken shape in the alley below behind them.
The city continued its relentless, indifferent roar, but in the dark of the stairwell, the only thing that mattered was the weight of her against his chest and the fact that she was still breathing.
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