It wasn’t anger.
It was confusion wrapped around hurt.
The words pierced through every protective layer I had built around myself.
How could I explain?
How could I tell him that his father had engineered my imprisonment?
That I had been framed.
Locked away.
Drugged.
Tortured.
Separated from him by design?
And how could I explain that during that time I had carried another child — only to lose it under brutal conditions?
Would that information free him?
Or would it burden him with adult pain he wasn’t ready to carry?
I chose honesty without detail.
I signed back slowly.
“It was never deliberate.”
My eyes locked onto his.
“I didn’t wake up one day and decide to leave you.”
I paused. “I was forced away.”
His brow furrowed.
“By who?”
The question was direct.
I hesitated.
I could not turn this moment into a courtroom testimony against his father.
Not yet.
Not when he still depended on Ruslan for stability.
“By circumstances that were bigger than me at the time,” I answered carefully.
“That’s the truth.”
He watched me closely.
Trying to read what I wasn’t saying.
