That it’s something darker and much more personal.
That I’m furious not because she ran, not even because she lied to me by promising she could never stomach being with another, but because she loved someone else enough to stay and build something real. Enough to carry his child inside her.
If I care, then this is no longer just about getting what is owed to me. It will no longer be just business.
It will be the unbearable knowledge that while I was burying my brother and father and holding my empire together with bloodied hands, she was out there learning how to live without me.
That truth is poison, a cancer that will keep growing the longer I allow it to fester.
I meet her eyes again and watch hope flicker there despite her fear. Something in me hardens, not out of cruelty but resolve.
All of this changes nothing. Not the truth of what her father did nor the debt her blood owes mine, and certainly not the reckoning that still waits at the end of this road. Mercy does not erase consequence. Love does not absolve betrayal.
But…
I am also not a monster.
Not to her. I could never be.
No matter how much pain is in my heart, no matter how cold I’ve learned to be, there are lines I will not cross. And whatever else she is—a liar, a traitor by association—she is still Elena.
“You can see him. Briefly,” I say.
The relief that moves across her face is immediate and devastating.
It’s so raw and unguarded, it nearly knocks the breath from my lungs.
Her shoulders sag like she’s been holding herself together by sheer force of will and for one disloyal second, I hate myself for being the one who put that fear there in the first place.
I open the door and nod once to the enforcers stationed outside. They move quickly and efficiently. When they return, dragging the child with them, the sound of his crying slices through the room. It’s high-pitched and panicked. The sound echoes off the walls and floor, filling the space entirely. Strangely, it tugs at something deep in my chest, at a part of me I didn’t know was still there.
Elena slips off the bed immediately, ignoring her injuries. Her eyes dart frantically between her child and me as if she’s afraid this small mercy will vanish if she looks away too long.
“Mama!” the boy sobs.
My attention locks onto him without thought.
His body trembles with every broken breath. His hair, a mousey brown, sticks up in uneven tufts, clinging to his forehead and damp with sweat. His cheeks are flushed, streaked with tears. His eyes are wide with confusion, focused only on his mother. Grey-green and?—
The room tilts suddenly.
I’ve seen those eyes before.
In the mirror staring back at me after sleepless nights soaked in death and regret. In my mother’s old photographs tucked away in drawers no one opens anymore. Images of me as a boy, solemn and too observant for my age, already learning how cruel this world could be even though I’d barely lived in it.
I see myself at that age—small hands, rigid posture, watching men argue in low voices while my mother smooths my hair and tells me not to be afraid.
I remember how helpless with fear I felt back then.
How absolute my father’s authority was. Over the men, over the house, overus.
The memory hits so hard, my chest tightens.
What are the chances…?
The thought slithers in uninvited, poisonous and impossible, until I recoil from it instantly. With a curt flick of my hand, I gesture to the enforcer holding the boy. “Release him.”
The guard hesitates only a fraction of a second before obeying.
