He might as well have slapped me; that's how much the words sting. He stops in front of me and then—slowly—lowers himself down until he's eye level with me. Kneeling. Controlled. Intentional. He takes my face in his hands, and I stiffen. He's not rough. But he's not gentle either. It's a precise vise. The contact sends a jolt of electricity straight through me. My skin remembers him before my fear catches up. And then the fear hitsanyway—sharp and paralyzing—because there isnothingin his expression. No warmth. No anger. No mercy.
Just a void.
For the first time in my life, I'm afraid of him. "Please," I whisper.
His thumbs press lightly into my jaw, forcing me to meet his eyes.
"Please, what?" he demands.
The question is a blade.
"Please save my son and my husband," I rush out, the words tumbling over each other.
He tilts his head, studying me like a problem he already knows the answer to.
"Or," he continues for me, keeping his voice dangerously calm, "please save my son and let my husband rot?"
My breath stutters. I can't answer. The truth is already written all over my face. And he sees it. Every last piece. I don't know what he wants. That's the worst part. If he wanted money, I'd find it. If he wanted blood, I'd cut myself. If he wanted obedience, silence, a signature—anything concrete—I would give it to him. But he's looking at me like I'm a puzzle he already solved and discarded.
His thumb brushes my lower lip. It's barely a touch. Accidental, almost. It's enough for my body to betray me in the worst way. Heat curls low in my stomach, slow and treacherous, a pulse I haven't felt in years waking like it was never gone at all. It chases the cold from my limbs, spreads in places I don't have words for anymore. Shame crashes into me instantly. I hate myself for it. But my body doesn't care about pride or timing or betrayal. It remembershimthe way smoke remembers fire. The way muscles remember a movement long after the mind forgets.
I don't have a reference point. I never did. He was my first and only. There was only ever him. I've never slept with anyoneelse. Never wanted to. Never needed to. And maybe that makes me pathetic, or naïve, or weak, but I know, deep in my bones, with terrifying certainty, that no man will ever make me feel the way he did. He ruined me for everyone else. My body knows it. Remembers.
Something flickers in his eyes. He sees it too. Whatever I hoped for dies instantly. Disgust floods his expression, sharp and unfiltered. Like I've confirmed something ugly he already suspected. He jerks his hands away from my face and rises abruptly, as if staying close another second might contaminate him.
"You don't have anything I want," he says coldly. The words land like a death sentence. "You wasted your time."
My chest tightens, and panic claws its way up my throat. "If your father doesn't want to interfere," he continues, turning away from me like I'm already finished, "then he must have his reasons."
The room feels suddenly enormous. Too quiet. Too empty. My heart hammers, every instinct screams at me that this is it, that if I don't say somethingnow, I'll lose everything. Including my son.
Most shameful of all, somewhere beneath the terror, beneath the grief, beneath the humiliation, my body still leans toward him, and I realize, with sickening clarity, that he knows exactly how much power that gives him.
My heart hardens. It's ugly. It's feral. It has nothing to do with dignity or pride or fear anymore. It has everything to do with my son.
"You have to get him back," I demand. My voice doesn't shake this time. "You have to."
He lets out a short laugh. Sharp. Disbelieving. "I don'thaveto do anything. This has nothing to do with me."
Slowly, I stand up. My knees are no longer weak. My body isn't cold anymore. It's actually getting hotter as fury rises inside me, the kind of fury only a mother knows when her young are in danger. I glare at him, every ounce of fear burning away under something hotter. "You're wrong."
His eyes flick to me, irritated.
"It haseverythingto do with you. He'syourson." The words detonate between us. The second they leave my mouth, I know I've made a mistake.
A terrible one.
The silence that follows is violent.
He stares at me like the world has tilted off its axis. Like I've just rewritten something fundamental inside him without permission. The glass in his hand flies. Not dropped. Thrown. It whistles through the air like a missile and explodes against the window behind me, bourbon and shards raining down in a sharp, glittering spray. The sound is deafening. Final.
I flinch but only barely. I don't step back. I don't scream. I don't apologize. I stand there and let the storm come.
He's on me in a heartbeat. Too fast. Too close. His face is inches from mine, his eyes are blazing, his jaw clenches so hard I can see the tendons in his neck strain. Veins stand out along his throat. His chest rises and falls like he's fighting something inside himself with everything he has.
His lips move. But no sound comes out. For a second, I think he might kill me. And if this is how it ends—fine. At least he knows. At least Amauri isn't a ghost anymore. At least the truth is out there now, breathing between us, impossible to take back. I stare right back at him, heart hammering, spine straight. Because even if I don't know him anymore—even if the man in front of me is a stranger carved out of rage and scars—I know menlikehim. Men like him don't abandon their blood. Men like him don't leave their sons in the hands of kidnappers. Andwhether he wants me dead and gone, or broken for daring to say it, he won't let Amauri die.
Not now. Not ever.
