James laughed without humor. “No. Not until it is done.”
Roderick folded his arms. “And what does done look like to you?”
James’s jaw tightened. “Justice.”
“That is a fine word,” Roderick said quietly. “It can mean many things.”
James turned back to him. “Do not turn philosophical.”
“I am not,” Roderick replied. “I am asking you what you intend.”
James’s patience snapped.
“I intend to make him pay,” James said. “I intend to make him regret that he ever touched my family.”
Roderick held his gaze. “And if the law cannot.”
James’s throat tightened. He should have stopped. He should have kept it contained.
The truth settled in his chest, sharp enough that he shifted his weight, as though discomfort might loosen its grip if he moved.
“Then I will,” James said.
Silence hit the room like a physical force.
Roderick did not flinch, but something sharpened in his eyes. “Say it properly.”
James’s hands clenched at his sides. “I will never return to London as a man who simply endured it. I will not sit in that house, in that title, and pretend my parents’ blood was the price of inheritance.”
Roderick’s voice was low. “James.”
“I am ready to kill him myself if I must,” James said, the confession ripping out of him like a wound. “If that is what it takes to end it.”
Roderick’s face went still. “Do you hear yourself?”
James’s chest heaved once. “I hear myself perfectly.”
“No,” Roderick said, firm now. “You hear your grief. You hear your rage. That is not the same as hearing your reason.”
James stepped forward. “Do not lecture me.”
“I will,” Roderick replied, unyielding. “Because I am the only man in this world who can tell you the truth without fearing you.”
James stared at him, jaw tight.
Roderick’s voice softened again, but his words cut cleaner. “You think you are talking about justice. You are talking about vengeance.”
James swallowed. “What is the difference.”
“The difference,” Roderick said, “is whether it makes you a man your mother would still recognize.”
The room went quiet.
James looked away first.
He felt the ache behind his eyes. The pressure of exhaustion. The way anger became easier than mourning because mourning required stillness.
Roderick stepped closer, not touching, but near enough that James could not pretend he was alone. “Tell me the truth,” he said. “What else is driving you?”
