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I let the bar rise. “I changed the locks. How the hell did you get in?”

“Mrs. Willet always had a soft spot for me,” he says with a shrug. “Told me to stop by the kitchen on my way out for a cookie.”

I wipe sweat from my face. “Fine. You found me. As you can see, I’m not licking wounds—I’m working on my recovery. So get the hell out.”

Instead of leaving, Remy drops onto the weight bench like he owns the place. To be fair, I did build it for him. The doctors said that exercise was good for him. He needed to keep his body, as well as his mind, busy.

“Not so fast,” he says. “There are a few things we need to discuss.”

“If it’s about my Barons, the Black Wedding, Arianette, your childhood resentment, or any goddamn color, I’ll pass.” I drop the weight with a loud clang and stand, crossing the room to grab my water bottle.

“I thought people who had near-death experiences were supposed to come out the other side rethinking their mistakes,” he says dryly.

He has no idea what it’s like crossing that veil. I hope he never does.

“As I was saying,” he continues, pulling the marker from behind his ear and tapping it against his knee, “when your wife was at my place, she said some things that got my attention.”

I should throw him out. Call Simon and tell him to leash his soldier. But the mention of Arianette makes me weak. I’m greedy for any piece of her.

“What’s your point, Remington?”

“Sy had an idea. He called in reinforcements to help Arianette dig through the trauma blocking her memories.”

I move over to the free weights, grabbing a pair of dumbbells just to have something to do with my hands. “What kind of reinforcements?”

“Sarah.”

“Sarah Hobbs?” I ask.

I pause mid-rep. I’ve known Sarah since our college days, long before she became Simon and Nick’s mother. Even before she earned her psychotherapy license.

“She felt like maybe she could help your wife get through some of the trauma mucking up her brain so she could get into those memories.”

This isn’t something I’d approve of, and my first reaction is to get angry. But then I remember that I’m not in charge of BRN right now. I have to assume DK did.

I move to the free weights to distract myself. “Cut to the chase.”

He takes a breath. “We have a camera set up in the living room. We watched the interview–with DK’s permission–until she started talking about Sorrin, and then he told us to fuck off and mind our own business.”

My son is a lot of things, but a liar isn’t one of them. If he said DK approved, I have to believe him.

“Sarah talked about Mom,” he continues, voice tightening. “About the time after she had me. How she got sick. Postpartum depression. How she was wasting away, acting all fucking erratic, delusional. Obsessed with protecting me from the darkness of the Houses. How you sent her away.”

It was a hard time. I was completely in over my head. I focused on work instead–it was easier than dealing with the instability in my home.

He studies me, eyes hard. “She said Mom was depressed after having me. But it didn’t sound like Sarah knew she got pregnant again.”

“No,” I say quietly, setting the dumbbells down. “I don’t think she did.”

Remy looks so much like his mother it hurts—same sharp features, same restless energy. The chaos that lives in him scares me more than I’ll ever admit.

“I want the truth,” he says, voice low. “I want to know what really happened. Why you sent her away. Why I had to grow up without a mother. And I want to know about Wicker. What the fuck that was all about? How the hell did Mom end up having another man’s baby?”

I glance away, jaw tight.

He leans forward. “It’s time, Dad. For me to hear it directly from you.”

I know he’s right. There’s a reason I’ve kept the truth about Amber from him his entire life. By the time he was old enough to understand, he was already fighting his own demons. I couldn’t pile more on top of that. It was easier for him to hate me. Safer, even. He can hate me all he wants–I can carry that.