Filed To Story: Craving The Wrong Brother Book PDF Free by Elysian Sparrow
He doesn’t stop. He moves with the kind of purpose that makes the floorboards feel thinner underfoot.
I follow him back down the tight stairwell, through the narrow confessional door. My phone light bounces off the floor. I glance up at him ahead, surprised he doesn’t need the light. Of course he doesn’t. He knows how to walk through the dark. I’m the one fumbling.
Once we’re out, I follow him closely to the car. The night is thicker now, the wind colder. The second he unlocks the doors, I climb in.
He starts the engine. I buckle in.
“Knox, baby, let’s just talk about this,” I say. “You’re not thinking straight.”
“I’m having the exact thoughts I need to be having.”
“At least tell me what those thoughts are so I can help you process them.” –
His jaw tenses. “One of them is that I don’t think I completely have you to myself yet. And maybe if Finn’s no longer in the picture, everything will be easier.”
I frown. “What does that even mean?”
“You’ll see.”
“Knox, for God’s sake, if you care about me at all, you’ll take us home and leave this rage behind. Please.”
“Don’t do that, Sloane.”
“Do what?”
“Manipulate me. All my life, I’ve been controlled by people I love. Don’t be one of them.”.
“I’m not, I swear,” I say quickly. My voice is trembling. My eyes sting. “I just got you. I’m not going to let whatever happens tonight take you away from me. You’re a good person, Knox. Just take us home.”
H? presses harder on the gas. “I’m not a good person, Sloane. And as much as I care about you, this isn’t about you. It’s about me. So please, stop trying to change my mind.”
I keep my gaze on the road. I should do something. Call Finn. Warn someone. But what would that say about my faith in Knox? And despite everything, some part of me still believes he won’t go too far. He wouldn’t. Not Knox.
But as we drive into Finn’s neighborhood, that faith wavers. He’s still mad, and I’m surprised he knows the address.
He parks, gets out, and heads into the building like a man with a mission.
I follow him up the stairs, my eyes catching on the dust smudged across the back of his shirt-leftover from when we were lying on the rooftop of that old cathedral. That rooftop I dragged him to. A man who’d lie on dirty gravel just because I asked him to… he couldn’t really be capable of hurting his own family, right?,
By the time we hit the fourth floor, he’s already knocking-no, pounding-on Finn’s door like he plans to tear it down.
I hurry to his side and start brushing his back with my hands, more out of instinct than sense. He stiffens at the touch and slowly turns his head to look at me.
“You got dust there,” I say quietly, smoothing my hand down his spine.
For a second, he just stares.
Then the door opens.
Victoria stands there in a mauve silk robe tied loosely at her waist, her hair clipped back, eyes rimmed with fatigue.
“Sloane. Knox,” she says, blinking. “That was fast.”
“Why’d you lie to me, Mom?” Knox says. “How could you use her name to lie to me?”
Victoria steps aside. “Please. Come in.”
Knox enters without hesitation. I follow him, shutting the door behind us and staying close to his side.
“Start talking,” he says.
“You should sit down,” she says gently. “Can I get you water? Juice? Lemonade? Even alcohol?”
“Mom, for the love of God and my sanity, can we just get to the part where you tell me why you mentioned Lydia’s name?”
“Keep your voice down,” Victoria says, eyes darting to the hallway. “Finn’s asleep.”
Knox steps further into the apartment. His body is coiled so tightly that I can feel the tightness from across the room. His eyes move. He’s looking for something. And then he spots it. A decorative vase sitting on a low shelf. He moves toward it without a word and grabs it. In one clean motion, he turns and hurls it across the room.
It crashes against the wall.
Victoria gasps, one hand flying to her mouth.
“The next time,” he says, “I’m going into Finn’s room and smashing something on his head.”
“Knox…” Victoria raises a hand like she’s reaching for him. “I’m so sorry. But I had to do what’s best for my boys.”
“For your boys or for Finn? Stop pretending like you care about me.”
“I do. You know I do.”
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“Then answer the question. Why did you feed my girlfriend lies to deliver to me? What did you think would happen? That I’d what? Cry? Run into Finn’s arms? This stunt won’t earn him my mercy.”
“It wasn’t a stunt,” Victoria says. Her voice lowers. Her eyes water. “It was the truth. She’s alive. She’s been alive all these years.”
Knox takes a step back. Shakes his head.
“That’s a lie.”
“Knox-“
“She’s dead. Lydia is dead, and she better stay dead after everything you put me through because of her.”
“Keep your voice down,” Victoria pleads. “Finn doesn’t know. It would break him.”
“Why do you always do this? You use people I love to get to me, Mom. Lydia back then. Sloane now. When do you stop?”
Before I can process what he just said, a voice comes from a different part of the house.
“People you love?”
We all turn. Finn is standing in the hallway. He looks awful. His face is still mottled with bruises, his hand wrapped in a cast. There’s a hollowness in him that makes my chest ache.
“You don’t love Sloane,” Finn says. “You just want to hurt me by keeping her. And she’s too blinded by you to notice.”
“Finn,” Victoria warns.
“Stop using Lydia,” Finn snaps. “Stop making her your excuse every time something happens between us. You’re not a martyr, Knox. You never were.”
Knox takes a step forward. His voice is ice. “How many times do I have to tell you not to say her name?”
“What are you going to do? Kill me?” Finn pulls something from the sling of his cast. It looks like a harmonica at first. Then he snaps it open.
A pocket knife.
My heart lurches.
“Don’t worry, Knox,” he says. “I’ll save you the trouble. I’ll slit my hand open, and then you don’t have to worry about me anymore.”
“Oh,
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“Everybody stay back,” Finn says, holding the blade just below the end of his cast, pressing it to the exposed skin of his wrist. The metal catches the ins in a way that makes my stomach twist. “This could’ve ended better, but you don’t stop until someone’s dead or in the hospital, Knox, So here we are
Knox doesn’t move. His hands are in his pockets, and his eyes are on his brother like he’s watching someone pull a party trick. It terrifies me, the way he looks so… unfazed.
Victoria looks horrified. She’s gone pale. I don’t know what I feel. Cold? Numb? Detached in that way you get when your brain won’t let you absorb something all at once. But I do know one thing-I don’t want to see Finn open his wrists. Not in front of me. Not ever.
“Is that supposed to move me, Finn?” Knox says, his tone flat. “You sent Mom to me with some lie about Lydia, hoping I’d come running. And now you think pulling a knife will somehow make me forgive you?”
“Lie about Lydia?” Finn says. “What are you talking about?”
We both look at Victoria. Her guilt is visible. She looks like she might melt right into the floor.
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