Chapter 872:

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Six years had etched new lines around his eyes and carved his jaw into a sharper, more severe angle. He wasn’t looking at her. His entire focus was locked on the door to their son’s room. The fury radiating from him was a palpable force — a controlled inferno she could feel against her skin. He wanted to scream at her, to demand answers, to unleash six years of betrayal and silence all at once. She could see the questions warring behind his eyes when he finally forced himself to look at her. Why? Where have you been? How could you?

But the words never came. His gaze dropped from her face to her drenched jacket, the puddle forming at her feet, the tremor in her hands. The inferno banked, replaced by something colder and more pragmatic.

“You’re soaked,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “You’ll get sick. That won’t help him.”

He didn’t wait for a reply. He turned, his broad back a wall of dismissal, and walked away. After a few steps, he paused and glanced back. “Come on. I’m taking you somewhere to get into dry clothes.”

It wasn’t a request. It was a command born of necessity — a temporary truce in a war that was far from over.

𝖱𝘰𝗆a𝗇𝗰е ոo𝗏𝘦𝗅s 𝗼n 𝘨𝖺𝗹𝘯o𝗏𝘦𝗅𝗌.𝗰𝗼𝗺

The silence in his penthouse was louder than the storm outside. Kane left a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants on the bed of the guest room before disappearing, leaving her alone with the ghost of a life she had once imagined. She changed quickly, the soft cotton a strange comfort against her chilled skin.

When she emerged, he was standing by the vast window overlooking the city, a glass of amber liquid in his hand. A second glass sat on the table — an offering, or a test.

She took it. The whiskey burned down her throat, momentarily silencing the frantic noise in her head.

“Thank you,” she whispered, the words feeling foreign and inadequate. “For taking care of him. And for not having me removed.”

Kane didn’t turn. “He’s my son. I’ll always take care of him.” A beat of silence. “I would have managed perfectly well without your involvement.”

The words were cold and deliberate. Haleigh absorbed the blow and held her ground. “How have you been, Kane?”

That made him turn. His dark, unreadable eyes moved slowly across her face. “How have I been?” he repeated, a humorless smile touching his lips. “Fine.”

The lie settled between them like smoke.

Then the room tilted. The edges of her vision blurred — the whiskey, the fear, the exhaustion — all of it crashing over her at once. She reached out to steady herself on the back of a chair, but her fingers found only air.

She was falling.

She didn’t reach the floor. Strong arms caught her, pulling her against a hard chest. The scent of sandalwood wrapped around her. Kane’s carefully constructed walls had crumbled in an instant, anger displaced entirely by instinct.

He swore under his breath — low, frustrated. Then, with a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of every year between them, he lifted her as though she weighed nothing.

He carried her back to the guest room and laid her gently on the bed, pulling the comforter over her with movements that were, despite everything, careful. He stood there for a moment in the dim light, watching her. The anger and resentment in his face softened into something far more unguarded — something that looked dangerously like grief.

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