Chapter 3 Kieran Pov

The words left my mouth before I could stop them.

"I want a divorce."

I watched her face shift through a dozen micro-expressions she thought she was hiding expertly. 

The truth is, she was never as good at hiding her emotions as she believed. 

Seraphina sat perfectly still for a long moment, and then, her chest moved with a breath she had been holding.

"Why?" she asked.

Her voice was steady, but I could sense a tremor in her breathing. 

I exhaled slowly and stood up, making my way to the window. Morning light cut across the room but I didn't turn to look at her. Looking at her made this harder.

"This isn't sudden," I said. "You know that."

Her laugh was quiet and humorless. "No. What's sudden is you finally saying it out loud."

I turned then. I had to see her. Her eyes met mine. Dark. Guarded. Hurt she was trying to bury.

"Is this because of Celeste?" she asked.

The question hit exactly where she aimed. I felt my eyes flicker before I could stop it.

"No," I said. Too quickly. I heard it even as I said it.

She kept watching me. Reading me. That was the thing about Seraphina—she'd spent ten years learning my tells. Boardroom instincts. Negotiation micro-expressions. She'd learned them by watching me with everyone else, never realizing I'd let her see them on purpose.

"You don't have to lie," she said softly. "You've never been good at lying to me. Just distant."

My jaw tightened. "This is not about Celeste."

"But she came back… And suddenly you want out."

I looked away. What could I say? That Celeste's return was a catalyst but not the cause? That I'd been thinking about this for years? That every time I walked past Daniel's room and saw her reading to him, every time I watched her eat breakfast alone because I was already gone, every time I came home late and found her asleep with the lights on, I knew that I had made a mistake that we were both paying for?

I couldn't say any of that.

"Edward's death made me realize something," I said, still not looking at her. "Life is short… too short to waste on a mistake."

The word hung in the air, and I regretted it immediately.

"A mistake," she repeated.

"Yes."

I heard her stand up, and when I finally looked, her face was pale but her eyes were blazing.

"So Daniel was a mistake too?"

My head snapped toward her. "Don't you dare."

"I'm not doing anything. I'm asking."

She had me, and she knew it. If our marriage was a mistake, then everything that came from it, including our son, was tainted by association. 

She'd cornered me with logic and I hated her for it. Hated myself more.

I didn't answer.

She took a step closer. "If you want a divorce, fine. But Daniel stays with me."

"Absolutely not." The words came sharp and fast out of instinct.

"He's my son."

"He's my heir. You think I'll just hand him over?"

"He's a child, not a succession plan."

"He's a Blackthorne. And a Frostbane by blood. He belongs here."

"He belongs with the parent who actually raised him. With me."

My temper flared. "You had help. Nannies. Tutors. Everything money could buy."

"And where were you?" Her voice rose, cracking at the edges. "Boardrooms. Flights. Europe. Anywhere but home. You can't buy presence, Kieran. You can't buy a father's love."

Silence slammed down between us.

She was right. God, she was right. I'd given Daniel everything except what mattered. I'd given Seraphina everything except what she needed.

I had nothing to say.

"I want full custody," she continued, forcing herself calm. "I don't want alimony. I don't want the house. I don't want anything else. Just my son."

I stared at her. She meant it. Every word.

"You're not thinking clearly."

"I've never been clearer."

"This will be a war. You know that."

"I know." She met my eyes. "And I'm ready to fight."

Something twisted in my chest. She looked fierce– broken but fierce. Like a wounded lioness that would still defend her cub to death.

I studied her face. The dark circles under her eyes. The set of her jaw. The hands clenched at her sides spoke of the ten years of this woman waiting for me to choose her… ten years of me not knowing how.

And now she was done waiting.

"Fine," I said.

The moment I spoke, confusion flickered across her face.

"What?"

"You can have custody. Full custody."

She blinked. "You're agreeing? Just like that?"

"Yes."

It was too quick. Her eyes narrowed. "Why?"

I stepped closer. Close enough to see the wariness in her expression. "Because Daniel will be safer with you." 

The truth, at least the partial truth. "And for some reason I don't understand, I don't want to fight you."

That part was a lie. I understood perfectly. Fighting her meant destroying her. And despite everything, despite the resentment and the distance and the ten years of silence, I couldn't do that. Not to her.

"I'll delay filing," I added. "Until after the funeral. No need to make this harder than it already is."

Pity flickered through me. For her. For us. For everything we'd never been.

She recoiled like I'd struck her.

"Don't," she said. "Don't soften it now. You never softened anything else in this marriage. Don't start now."

I said nothing. What was there to say?

"You never chose me." The words poured out of her, raw and bleeding. "I was an obligation. A solution. A consequence. You married me because I got pregnant. Not because you loved me."

I didn't argue, couldn't. Because she was right. That was how it started.

But she didn't know the rest. Didn't know that somewhere in the ten years of silence, something had changed. That I'd started watching for her car in the driveway. That I'd begun noticing when she laughed at something Daniel said. That I'd caught myself wanting to be the reason for that laugh.

She didn't know because I never told her. Because I didn't know how. Because by the time I figured it out, the distance between us had become a chasm.

"Leave," she said, her chest heaving. "I want to be alone. After everything, I deserve that much. Leave, Kieran."

I hesitated. Wanted to say something. Anything. But what words could bridge ten years?

I turned and walked out.

Seraphina’s POV

That night, I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling. The house was silent… and for the first time, it felt too big. Too empty.

I cried, using my pillow to muffle the sound of my cries. I cried for my father, my marriage, and the life I had held together alone for ten years.

And for the truth I could no longer ignore.

None of it had ever been mine.

But Daniel was. Daniel would always be.

And I would burn this city to the ground before I let them take him.