Chapter 5

The Man They Tried to Break

CALLUM:

Waking up felt wrong.

I wasn’t supposed to wake up.

Not here. Not like this.

And definitely not with her voice tearing a hole through the darkness.

Iris.

I heard her before I saw her.

Begging. Whispering my name like a prayer and a sin all at once.

I opened my eyes slowly.

The hospital lights stung. My throat was raw, like I’d been screaming inside my own head for days. My body was stiff. Every muscle rebelled when I shifted.

But when I finally managed to focus, there she was.

Iris.

Sitting beside me, clutching my hand like she was holding onto life itself. Her hair was a mess, her face pale and bruised with exhaustion, but her eyes—God, her eyes—were the only thing that felt real.

“Callum,” she choked out, voice cracking. “You’re awake.”

I tried to speak.

Nothing came out.

She leaned closer, brushing the hair back from my forehead like she used to—like she remembered every version of me I didn’t.

And that’s when the memories slammed into me like a freight train.

The fight.

The cliffs.

The last words she said before everything went black.

"They killed your real mother, Callum. And you're next."

My chest tightened painfully.

“Don’t,” I rasped, pulling my hand away instinctively.

She froze. Hurt flashed across her face, but she masked it fast—too fast.

"I need to explain," she whispered.

I stared at her, my mind a twisted wreckage of flashing images.

Ezra's face.

The wrecked car.

Seraphine’s kiss.

Iris crying, clutching something against her chest—something that looked like my mother’s necklace.

"You lied to me," I said hoarsely. "You all lied."

Iris shook her head frantically. “Not about us. Never about us.”

I wanted to believe her. God help me, I wanted to.

But the scars on my mind told a different story.

“You chose to wipe me clean,” I said, each word a jagged stone I had to throw at her. “You signed the papers. You made me forget.”

Tears pooled in her eyes, but she didn’t look away. She didn’t deny it.

“I thought I was saving you,” she said. "They told me—Lenora told me—you would be dead by morning if you remembered the truth."

I scoffed, the sound bitter and broken. “And you believed her.”

Her chin lifted stubbornly. "I believed I didn’t have a choice."

I swung my legs off the bed, every movement sending pain shooting through my body.

I didn’t care.

“What else did you take from me?” I demanded.

She opened her mouth.

Hesitated.

The silence was my answer.

"There's something else," I said coldly. "Isn't there?"

Iris squeezed her eyes shut. For a second, I thought she might shatter.

Then she whispered, so soft I almost missed it:

"You have a son."

The world tilted.

I stared at her, numb.

"What?" My voice was barely human.

"A boy," she said, tears streaming down her cheeks now. "Your son. Our son."

I staggered backward like she’d slapped me.

"You hid my child from me?"

Iris sobbed. "I didn’t want to. They—Lenora—she said if I told you, they’d take him. They’d lock him away. I couldn’t risk it."

For a moment, all I could hear was the blood roaring in my ears.

A son.

A life I didn't know existed.

A life I was supposed to protect.

And I failed him before I even knew he breathed.

The door burst open.

Ezra stood there, out of breath, holding a crumpled letter in one hand.

"You need to see this," he panted, shoving the paper toward me.

I unfolded it with shaking fingers.

It wasn’t a threat.

It wasn’t blackmail.

It was a will.

My real mother's will.

The one that had disappeared after her "accidental" death.

And it said one thing, over and over again:

Protect Callum.

Trust no one at Thorne Manor.

Not even Iris.

IRIS: 

The silence between us was thicker than the rain pounding on the windows.

Callum sat across from me, jaw tight, shoulders drawn inward like he was bracing for a hit. Maybe he was. After what I’d kept from him, I deserved it.

“I’m not going to ask again,” he said finally, voice low. "Why didn’t you tell me about Noah?"

I swallowed the knot in my throat. “Because I was scared. Because I didn’t know who I was talking to anymore. Because after the accident, you looked at me like I was nothing.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I have.”

He ran a hand down his face, breathing hard. “You let me walk around this house while my own son was hidden from me?”

“He wasn’t here. He was safe. With people I trusted. And you—” My voice cracked. “You weren’t in a place to handle him. Or me.”

His eyes snapped to mine. “So you made that decision for me?”

“No. Lenora made it for both of us.”

That name landed like a gunshot.

I pulled the envelope from my coat pocket. The one that still held the remnants of Callum’s real mother’s will. “She’s been playing you from the start. She used Seraphine, me, everyone. She covered up your mother’s death. And she convinced me that if you remembered, it would kill you.”

Callum looked at the letter without touching it. His expression cracked.

“I remember her now,” he said, voice hollow. “My real mother. She used to hum when she brushed my hair. Lenora hated that.”

I nodded. “She hated everything she couldn’t control.”

The room fell silent again, but it wasn’t the same kind of silence. It was one filled with hurt, truth, and something else—grief.

“I need a DNA test,” Callum said. “Not because I don’t believe you. But because I want something no one else can fake.”

“I understand.”

He stood, walked to the door, and paused. “If he’s mine…”

“He is.”

He nodded slowly. “Then you and I have a lot to fix. And no more lies.”

“I swear it, Callum.”

B

ut as the door closed behind him, I didn’t feel relief.

I felt the weight of everything still left unsaid.

Because Lenora wasn’t finished.

And Seraphine had started circling again.