Sir.
Fuck.
The word went through me like a blade, but I made myself smile for her. “You’re welcome, Helena.”
She turned the bracelet in her hand, all soft wonder and birthday happiness, completely unaware that she had just ruined me with one polite word.
My eyes met Edwina’s.
Then I left.
I do not remember the exact moment I walked out, only the force it took to leave. Every instinct in me wanted to stay, tearthe place apart, and rip answers from Edwina’s mouth until the screaming inside me finally stopped.
I got back to my car and shut the door. The silence that followed was not silence at all. My pulse was too loud. My thoughts were worse. Everything inside me had gone rabid.
It was late now. The street had quieted. Warm light glowed behind windows, and somewhere above me, the party had started to die down. The music was gone, replaced by muffled movement, doors opening and closing, laughter thinning as guests began to leave.
I sat behind the wheel with my hands locked around it hard enough to ache. My jaw clenched until the pressure reached my temples.
And I watched.
One by one, they came out. Parents carrying tired children. Young people shrugging into coats. A few guests still laughing about shit that no longer mattered. I studied every face, still on the outside while the violence in me sank deeper and turned colder. I did not blink much. Movement felt pointless. Tiredness had nothing to do with me anymore. I was running on betrayal, certainty, and the sick knowledge that Edwina had known all along.
That was the part that kept tightening my grip.
She had looked me in the face tonight with tears in her eyes and fear written through her body because there was no denying what I had seen. Helena was mine. The truth had lived with Edwina for years while I tore myself apart in the dark, thinking I had lost only her.
All this time, she had carried my child, given birth to her, raised her, and buried me so deep outside that life I had to stand there as a stranger at my own daughter’s birthday.
What kind of fucking cruelty did that take?
What kind of coldness?
What kind of terror had possessed her to build a whole life around that silence and call it protection?
I did not know.That was why I stayed there, waiting in the dark with something inside me that no longer felt fully human. There was no version of this night where I drove away, slept it off, and came back tomorrow pretending to be calmer or more civilized. That shit was gone. The part of me still sitting in that car had teeth now. It wanted the truth raw, ugly, and stripped of every lie she had used to survive me.
After the guests left, after the lights dimmed and the building settled, there would be nothing standing between us except the wreckage she had spent years hiding behind. Edwina was going to tell me everything.
Every fucking thing.
Because if Helena was mine, and she was, I would stake my goddamn life on it, then tonight was the last night Edwina Rhodes got to keep that truth from me.
Giselle came out first. Then Daniel. They were the last ones.
For a moment, I stayed inside the car, half-hidden by the dark, watching them step into the cold beneath the weak gold of the streetlamp. Giselle said something as she adjusted her coat. They lingered for a minute before going separate ways.
That was it. The witnesses were gone. The interruptions were over.
I got out of the car and crossed the distance with my whole body wound tight. Rage burned too fast for what lived in me now. This was colder, heavier, built for damage. By the time I reached her door, I could hear movement inside. Soft steps. The quiet sounds of cleaning up after a party. The remains of a life I had been denied. I stood there for only a second before the door opened.
Edwina must have thought the night had ended. That she had survived the worst of it. That once the guests were gone and Helena was asleep, she could finally breathe.
She saw me just as she started to close the door. Shock hit her face first. Then anger.
She moved fast, trying to shut me out, but I was faster. My hand slammed against the door before the lock could catch, stopping it hard enough to make her breath catch.
“What the hell are you doing?” she hissed, her voice sharp and furious. “What are you doing here at this hour?”
