“I'm not here to hurt him,” I say, and the words feel like knives unsheathed in my throat. “Or you.”
She stares at me, eyes flaring with heat. “You already did.”
And gods, that lands. Right in the chest.
She doesn’t yell.
She doesn’t throw anything.
But thetruthin that sentence cracks me sideways.
I turn slightly toward the guards. “You escort me back to my ship, or I leave through a hull. Your choice. But either way, I walk out clean. And so does she.”
“You’re a wanted man,” the officer says tightly.
“Then want me on your sensors—not in your morgue. I walk. They stay untouched. And your station doesn’t turn into a newsfeed bloodbath.”
His jaw tics.
He nods once.
“That’s the deal,” I say.
“Those areyourterms,” he counters.
I smile. It’s not kind. “The only ones that matter.”
He glances at Isolde for confirmation.
She doesn’t look at him.
She doesn’t look atme, either.
She just pulls her son gently into her side and whispers something in his ear.
He nods.
Barely.
The motion is tiny. Incomplete. Like he’s unsure whether to agree or rebel.
She presses her forehead to his temple, just for a second.
And my chest feels like it’s full of ash.
She’s had to do this without me.
All of it.
The nights.
The fear.
Theexplaining.
And now, I’m a ghost breathing in her doorway.
I take one last look at the boy.
