Jess.
Always Jess.
The guilt hits harder than the bear’s claws ever did. Sharper. Deeper. The kind that leaves scars you can’t see but feel every fucking day.
I loved my wife. I did. But I also spent five years obsessing over a woman I met in Vegas the night before my wedding. Hired a private investigator to track her movements.
What kind of mandoesthat?
The kind who deserves exactly what he got.
I sink onto the edge of the bed. The mixing bowl sits on the dresser like evidence at a crime scene. Proof that I was always half-gone. Always looking somewhere else even when I was supposed to be present.
And now Isotta’s dead. And I’m alive. And Jess is sleeping in my house taking care of my daughter because I dragged them both into the woods and nearly got them killed.
This face. This destroyed, monstrous face. It’s not an accident. It’s justice.
Punishment for wanting what I shouldn’t have wanted. For loving someone while married to someone else. For being the kind of father who prioritizes rites of passage over his kid’s actual needs.
Ben came in yesterday, alone, after Neli left. I let her see my face. Wanted her to know I was still here. Still her dad.
As usual, she stared for a long time.Those big brown eyes taking in every ridge, every scar, every piece of damage.
She almost didn’t cry this time.
Almost.
But in the end, the tears still streamed down her face while she stood there holding Frederick.
“It’s okay,piccola,” I’d said. “It looks worse than it is.”
More lies. It looks exactly as bad as it is.
She’d nodded. Wiped her face. Left the room without saying anything.
Jess was waiting in the hall. I heard her voice through the door. Soft. Soothing. Counting breaths with Ben like they’ve practiced a thousand times.
One. Two. Three.
Jess.
Who apparently faced down the charging grizzly with nothing but bear spray and pure fucking will. Who kept my daughter from seeing her father get turned into ground meat.
And now I can’t even look at her.
Can’t let her see what I’ve become.
Because if she sees this face and the man behind it she’ll realize I’m not worth the devotion she’s been showing. Not worth the nights sleeping on Ben’s floor. Not worth the homeschooling and the trauma therapy.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand. I reach for it with my good hand. The left one still aches when I grip too hard.
Email from Gianna, my COO. Subject line:“Metropolitan Ledger Inquiry.”
Fuck.
I open it.
Calder Kells has sent another probe. This one’sdifferent from his previous decline-hunting bullshit. More personal. More pointed.
