“Because he wants me!” She’s breathing hard now, frustration and anger making her movements slightly less controlled. “Because he sees me as an opportunity—alliance with the Carters, access to power.”
She gets inside my guard and I have to actually work to counter her, my respect for her skill growing with every exchange. Thisisn’t amateur hour. This is someone who’s put in the hours, the work, the dedication.
“We should have asked,” I admit, catching her wrist and pulling her close. “We should have trusted you.”
“Yes, you should have.” She uses the hold to get leverage, sweeping my leg. I see it coming but I’m off-balance and we both go down, her on top this time. “Because I have two children, Jace. Two five-year-olds who depend on me to make good decisions, to protect them, to be the adult. I don’t need three more children who can’t communicate, who spiral into doubt at the first sign of trouble, and who lie to my face about being better only to revert back to who they were that made me run in the first place.”
The words land like physical blows.
From across the gym, I hear the door open and close—Silas returning.
Parker has me pinned now, her forearm across my throat—not enough pressure to choke, but enough to make the point. Her face is inches from mine, and I can see everything she’s feeling written in those sea-glass eyes.
Hurt. Betrayal. Anger. Love.
Still love, despite everything.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it. “We fucked up. We let Charles get in our heads, let doubt override what we knew about you. It won’t happen again.”
“How do I know that?” she demands. “How do I know the next time things get complicated, the next time someone plants a seed of doubt, you won’t do the same thing?”
“Because we love you,” Cal says from where he’s still on the mat, pushing himself up to sitting. “Because we’re going to do better. Because?—”
“Words are cheap,” Parker interrupts, but her forearm eases off my throat slightly. “Actions matter. Trust matters. Communication matters.”
She releases me, rolling off and getting to her feet in one fluid motion. Silas is standing at the edge of the mat now, holding a small clear bag with swabs and sample tubes inside, his expression somewhere between vindicated and approving.
Parker walks over to him, takes the bag without a word. Her movements are deliberate, controlled, as she opens it and removes what she needs.
She turns back to us—me still on the mat, Cal sitting a few feet away—and her expression is unreadable.
“Open,” she says, walking to me first.
I blink up at her, processing. “What?—”
“Open your mouth, Jace.”
Understanding hits like cold water. The swabs. The sample tubes. She’s not asking us to take a paternity test.
She’s taking it herself. On her terms. Without asking permission.
I glance at Cal, who’s staring at Parker with something like shock mixed with resignation. Then I look back up at her—standing over me with a swab in one hand and a sample tube in the other, her expression daring me to refuse.
I open my mouth.
Parker swabs the inside of my cheek with clinical efficiency, no wasted movement, no hesitation. She caps the swab, places it in a tube, and pulls a marker from the bag. She writes a single letter on the label:J
Then she turns to Cal.
“Open.”
Cal doesn’t argue. Doesn’t question. Just opens his mouth and lets her swab his cheek with the same methodical precision. She caps it, labels it with aC, and sets it aside.
Silas steps forward without being asked, opening his mouth before she even turns to him.
Something shifts in Parker’s expression—gratitude, maybe, or acknowledgment. She swabs him, labels the tube with anS, and then she’s holding all three samples in her hands.
She looks at them for a moment, these small plastic tubes that contain answers we’ve been too afraid or too stupid to ask for directly. Then she tucks them into her sports bra, one by one, the samples disappearing against her skin.
