I was not a woman standing in front of her husband.
I was an agent conducting an operation.
This was fieldwork.
I glanced briefly toward the direction where my father had been dragged away.
Then back at him. “You made your point.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “That wasn’t about making a point.”
He leaned back slightly in the stool. “It was about establishing boundaries.”
His jaw tightened. “Your father touched territory that belongs to me.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Territory?”
His gaze flicked briefly to the bruise forming on my cheek — the result of my father’s slap earlier.
His expression darkened. “You were assaulted.”
I crossed my arms slowly. “You didn’t need to gouge his eye out to make that clear.”
He tilted his head. “Maybe.” A pause. “Maybe I did.”
“You needed time to heal, Elena,” he said quietly.
His gaze didn’t waver. “I gave you four years of it.”
I stared at him.
Four years.
As if absence could be framed as generosity.
As if vanishing after destroying someone counted as a favor.
“Do you even feel remorseful at all?” I asked.
The question came out steady. Measured. Professional.
His jaw tightened slightly — the smallest physical shift.
“Remorse doesn’t even begin to cover it,” he said quietly.
“I need pills just to shut my mind off at night... to force myself to sleep because everything I did to you plays on repeat.”
His voice dropped lower. “Ever since you walked out of that prison, you’ve haunted every single thought I have.”
He exhaled slowly.
“Sleep became a luxury I couldn’t afford.”
The statement sounded rehearsed — like something he had repeated internally too many times.
But then his expression changed.
Not dramatically.
