Page 166

I had to leave today.

The thought clawed up my throat like bile, but thoughts of Seth and Luke kept me beneath the covers.

I curled tighter, drawing my knees to my chest the way I used to when I was a little girl hiding from thunderstorms. Richard’s side of the bed was already cold. He had probably been awake for hours, watching and waiting. The man I married had become a locked room I could no longer enter, and every day I stayed felt like I was choosing the cage over the unknown terror outside it.

I depended on Richard financially, and my father was gone. My best friend was in Europe, her last text still unread because I couldn’t bear to lie to her again. I had no idea whom I could trust or where I would be safe.

Grant had given me precise instructions when he called again. I had to leave alone first so Richard wouldn’t realize I intended to take the boys. Grant wanted me to check into a motel outside town and call him from there. Once I was safely away, he would send officers to retrieve Seth and Luke and bring them to me.

The plan terrified me, but Grant insisted it was the safest way to get all three of us out alive. If I tried taking the boys myself, Richard could stop us before we reached the end of the driveway.

I couldn’t appear to be running until I knew Richard was away.

I forced myself up, splashed water on my face until my eyes looked less haunted, and chose the soft gray sweater Seth had once said made me look like a storm cloud. Richard stood at the counter in his usual crisp button-down, flipping through his phone as any normal husband might on his son’s birthday.

“Morning,” I said, my voice calmer than I felt.

He looked up, that measured smile curving his lips. “Morning, Sam.”

I swallowed. “It’s Seth’s birthday. I was thinking… Maybe I could take him out alone this morning? Just the two of us. IHOP, the way we used to talk about. He’s been so quiet lately.”

Richard studied me for a long second. My pulse roared in my ears before he finally nodded.

“Sure. Sounds good.”

His easy agreement unsettled me. He made no attempt to join us and gave me no time to return. I smiled even though my cheeks hurt, then turned away before he could see the terror flooding my veins.

Seth was already dressed in jeans and a black hoodie when I knocked on his door. The hoodie swallowed his small frame. He looked up at me with those serious eyes that always saw too much. He was eight years old and already carried the weight of this house on his little shoulders.

“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” I whispered, kneeling to hug him. “Ready for pancakes?”

He nodded once.

The drive to IHOP was quiet except for the radio playing an old Halloween novelty song. Seth stared out the window at the gray sky. I kept stealing glances at him, my hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel.

Inside the booth, the smell of syrup and bacon wrapped around us like a false promise of normalcy. I ordered his favorite, chocolate chip pancakes with extra whipped cream, and watched him eat.

Halfway through, I slid the small wrapped box across the table. My hands were shaking again.

“I got you something,” I said softly.

Seth looked at the package, then at me. He carefully peeled back the paper. Inside was a black 1967 Chevy Impala model car, every detail perfect down to the chrome wheels. I’d seen him trace the car on a magazine page once.

He turned it over in his hands, studying the lines and testing the tiny doors that opened.

“I noticed you liked that car,” I told him. “The one in the magazine last month. I thought… it looked fast enough to outrun the world.”

His eyes lifted to mine. For a moment, the restaurant noise faded. “I love it, Mom.”

Tears burned behind my eyes as I studied Seth more closely. Even though he carried most of Richard’s angular features and those striking gray eyes that seemed to pierce straight through the world, he still possessed my father’s smile. There was a softness in it, a quiet kindness that refused to be extinguished. I knew in my bones that so much good lived inside him, despite the monster his father was.

I smiled then, my heart swelling until it felt too large for my chest. Seth was my heart, beating outside my body in the shape of this child who still believed in goodness and superheroes.

“I love you, Seth,” I said softly, the words catching in my throat. “You’re my boy. You and Luke both.”

Richard considered Seth his legacy, the continuation of whatever twisted empire he was building in the dark. My son deserved the chance to grow up far away from the man who had already stolen so much from us.

I watched him eat the rest of his pancakes, committing every small movement to memory. He licked syrup off his thumb and furrowed his brow as he aligned the model car’s wheels on the table. My chest ached with grief intense enough to carve me open from the inside.