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He didn’t reply

Suddenly overwhelmed and emotionally raw, he clenched his teeth and walked off Hawke’s brow furrohen Borden approached

"Let hi to keep his voice level "He isn’t himself He’s had too much to drink"

"Kate’s father or not, drunk or not, his intentions were to kill you," Hawke snapped back angrily "You can’t let hi to get his thoughts in order, but he felt like a noose had wrapped itself around his neck He looked back at Doug, and then at Hawke’s stone-cold face The walls around him started to close in, and he took off out of the warehouse, pacing back and forth

A sharp twist in the centre of his being, and he dropped to his knees He grabbed at his hair and pulled at it in frustration before dragging his nails down his face But even the pain didn’t remove the ache inside of him All he saas Kate’s dead face He couldn’t even look back at a ti face look at hiround, and his eyes continued to sting with unshed tears FUCKING FUCK, why couldn’t he ever just cry for her? Why wouldn’t the tears fall?

He would never have seen that face had he never returned She would have been alive Doug was right He was fucking right about everything

Borden was a monster, and he deserved to die

"He can’t live," Hawke said from behind hi here Hoill they respect you if you don’t put thisto kill the most powerful man in New Raven?"

Borden stared up at the sky, as if waiting for it to offer him answers to this fucked up situation

"It’s not personal," Hawke continued "Just get it done and we’ll take care of the rest"

Borden exhaled slowly and rose to his feet He felt like a man stripped of his ar scum that killed Kate

And was he?

He turned around, and nodding to Hawke, he strode back into the warehouse

Twenty-Three

Emma

The ones at the top are always the worst, Emma But you already knew that

I was rattled by his words I’d spent the rest of the day trying to understand the ine him as the villain he portrayed himself to be, and it alarmed me when I broke down into tears Because he really was, and no ae that

So why didn’t I stop feeling less for him then?

Borden wasn’t in the office the next day

In fact, he didn’t show up the rest of the week And the week after

That was nine Borden-less days