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SIXTY FOUR
publish date:
2026-05-27 14:51:00
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I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON 169
THALIA"Catherine."Her name came out of me quiet, almost fragile, and for a second neither of us moved. We just stood there in that hallway, staring at each other, two women who'd never quite known what to make of one another suddenly bound together by the same fear.Then she closed the distance and pulled me into a hug so sudden it nearly knocked the breath out of me."I'm so sorry," I said into her shoulder, the words spilling out before I could stop them. "I'm so sorry your son is in there because of me. If he hadn't come after me, if he hadn't—""Stop that right now."She pulled back just enough to look at me, her hands still gripping my shoulders, her eyes sharper than I expected given everything happening around us."Don't you dare apologize to me," she said, leading me toward a row of plastic chairs against the wall. "Sit."I sat.She lowered herself beside me, smoothing her coat down with the kind of composure that felt almost unnatural in a hospital hallway at this hour, and
I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON 168
THALIAThe doctor kept talking, but none of it landed properly.Words floated past me, scattered pieces I couldn't string together into anything that made sense. Exhausted. Stress levels through the roof. The fall was hard, harder than it should have been for a healthy man. Something about his head hitting a rock on the way down. My mind refused to hold onto any of it beyond the basic shape of what it meant: Brandon was hurt, and he was somewhere behind those doors I couldn't follow him through."Mrs. Langford?"I blinked, realizing the doctor had said something and was waiting for a response."I'm sorry, I didn't—" My voice cracked. "Can you say that again?"He softened, the way people do when they're used to delivering bad news gently. "His body had been running on empty for days. No proper sleep, barely any food, and then the physical shock of everything that happened tonight on top of it. When he collapsed, he hit his head against a rock on the way down, and that combined with ev
I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON 167
THALIAThe gun didn't move, neither did Caleb's eyes.His hand shook, but not much. Enough that I couldn't tell anymore who he actually meant to hit if it went off, me or Brandon, and that uncertainty was somehow worse than if he'd looked calm.Brandon stepped in front of me anyway."How dare you," he said, voice low, "kidnap my woman."My woman? My stomach did something stupid and unwelcome at that, some tiny, traitorous flutter completely out of place with a gun three feet from my face. I hated myself a little for it. Focus, Thalia.Caleb laughed, and it came out wrong, cracked at the edges. "Your woman? You signed papers, Brandon. You let her go. I never did... I..."But Caleb never saw it coming.Someone slammed into him from behind, and the gun spun across the floor in a bright, clattering arc. Both men hit the ground hard. The man had him pinned in seconds, knee in his back, one arm wrenched up between his shoulder blades."You're under arrest." He voice was flat, fast, already
I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON 166
CHAPTER 166BRANDONWe were still a few cars back when Caleb's brake lights flared unevenly, his car drifting toward the shoulder before rolling to a stop, hazards blinking on a moment later."Something's wrong with his car," Reyes said, as I eased off the gas.I watched Caleb get out, circle to the front, lift the hood. Smoke, faint but visible, curling up into the streetlight."I’m pulling back," I said. "If he sees us sitting here, this is over."I turned down a side street and parked far enough away that the angle blocked our view of Caleb entirely. Which meant we'd also lost him. If he called someone, got a ride, walked off in some direction we couldn't predict, we'd have nothing.I sat there for a second, jaw tight, refusing to let this be the moment everything fell apart.Then it hit me.The PI. The same one I'd hired months ago to dig into Clara, back before any of this started, before Thalia vanished and my entire world narrowed down to this one search. I hadn't even closed t
I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON 165
THALIAThree hours. That's how long it took me to work my ankles free of the rope, fingers cramped and raw, patience worn down to something thin and jagged by the time the last knot finally gave.I couldn't feel my legs at first. I just sat there staring down at them like they belonged to someone else, then forced myself to stand, gripping the back of the chair for balance.My knees buckled almost immediately."Oops," I muttered under my breath, catching myself against the wall. "Spoke too soon."I gave it a minute, flexing my ankles, rolling them slowly until the pins and needles crawling up through my calves finally settled into something manageable. Then I tried again, and this time my legs held.The door was unlocked. Caleb did not bothered securing it properly from the inside, too confident in the man he'd posted outside to think it mattered. I almost laughed at that, quietly, bitterly. So much faith in a guard who was about to let him down without even realizing it.I pressed my
I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON 164
BRANDONThe door shut behind him, and I stood there a second longer than I meant to, replaying every second of it.I care about her.He'd said it too smooth. Like a line he'd practiced saying out loud until it stopped sounding like a lie even to himself.And underneath all of it, that scent, still clinging faintly to his collar when he'd leaned in to shake my hand on the way out. He smelled like a man who'd been close enough, recently enough, that it hadn't had time to fade.There'd been something else too, something I'd almost let slide past me while I was too busy focusing on the scent. When he'd turned to leave George's office, bending slightly to adjust his shoe, I'd caught a flash of it under his shoes. Cartoonish. A bandaid with some ridiculous pattern printed across it, the kind you'd expect on a child, not on a grown man.I hadn't thought much of it in the moment. Now it sat in my chest like a second confirmation, right alongside the scent, refusing to let me talk myself out
I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON FIFTY FIVE
THALIABy the time I got to work the next morning, I was still irritated from Brandon showing up at my apartment the night before like he had lost every remaining ounce of sense he possessed.The nerve of that man still annoyed me.I walked into the lab with my coffee in one hand and my laptop bag
I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON FIFTY
THALIAI stood just behind the stage entrance, my hands resting lightly against each other as I adjusted my grip, then released it again when I realized I was doing too much.“You’re good,” the event coordinator said quietly as she passed me. “It’s almost your turn.”I nodded once without respondin
I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON SIX
THALIAAcross the city, my new apartment still smelled faintly of fresh paint.Freedom had a strange scent.I stood in the middle of the living room, staring at the half-opened boxes scattered everywhere. The place wasn’t nearly as large as the Langford estate, but it felt lighter somehow. The sile
I LEFT WHEN HIS EX CAME BACK WITH HIS SON FIVE
BRANDONThe first thing I felt was anger.It sat heavy in my chest all afternoon, refusing to fade.I stood in my office at Langford Pharmaceuticals, staring through the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city. Traffic crawled below like ants. People moved through their ordinary lives, wh
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