Why try to change now?
Why come back?
Why risk it?
I squeeze her hand.
“Because I woke up one day and realized the legacy I was building was just a graveyard with better PR. Because I met a kid who looked at me like I wasn’t a monster. Because I saw the woman I loved crossing the street and I felthopefor the first time in years.”
She doesn’t answer.
Doesn’t have to.
We sit in silence for a long time. The kind that stretches between galaxies.
Then I whisper, “If I can’t protect you both from my world… I’ll cut myself out of it.”
Her head jerks toward me.
I meet her eyes.
“I mean it, Kairo. If being in your life, in Ben’s life, means you’re always looking over your shoulder… I’ll walk. I’ll vanish. I’ll dismantle every piece of power I have until there’s nothing left but the part of me that can belong to you.”
She stares at me like I’ve set the stars on fire.
Then she speaks, so quietly I almost miss it.
“You really think you can change everything?”
“No,” I say. “But I can changeme.”
She leans her head against my shoulder.
And for a while, we just breathe.
Together.
Not whole. Not healed.
Butpossible.
CHAPTER 25
KAIRO
Ben is curled up like a comma in the middle of his bed, arms tucked under his cheek, mouth half-open in the soft, slack way only children manage. His lashes—long and unfair—flutter against flushed cheeks, and his little chest rises and falls with each even breath.
I lean against the doorframe and just… watch.
He has no idea his world is balancing on the edge of a sentence.
The truth hums under my ribs like a swarm of angry wasps. It’s time. Gods, it’spasttime. I’ve played this scene in my head a hundred ways—me sitting on the edge of his bed, his tiny hands in mine, my voice trembling but calm as I say the words:
“Ben, I want to tell you about your father.”
I always imagined it would be in a moment like this. Soft morning light. Peace. Just us.
Not pressure. Not consequence.
