Semua Bab My Half-Vampire Son Painted Another Woman as Mom: Bab 11 - Bab 16

Lucien's POVBy the time I finally wrestled an exhausted Luke back home, it was fully dark.The garage light clicked on automatically, cold white light falling across the windshield. I sat there without turning off the engine.In the back seat, Luke had cried himself to sleep, curled up in his car seat, dried tear tracks on his face.I savored those five minutes of quiet, but one thought kept circling back, louder each time.Iris still hadn't replied.Hours had passed since morning. What was she doing?I opened my phone. The chat was stuck on my last message: "He just really misses you."Unread.I stared at those two gray texts, and a slow discomfort spread through my chest.For ten years, she'd never made me wait. She'd always been the one handling the child, watching Luke's moods, absorbing the fallout.Now she'd left in a fit of pique, and I was thrown off balance---almost feeling overlooked, abandoned without warning.That feeling irritated me, and it drove me to scroll through my

Iris's POVLucien couldn't have predicted how quickly I'd reply.And he certainly didn't expect the answer itself."Agreed. Let's divorce."I'd been waiting for this message longer than he knew. I just hadn't anticipated it would take him only eight days of solo parenting to lose both his patience and his judgment.I'd loved too humbly, for too long---long enough that he'd convinced himself I'd never dare leave, never dare end this marriage.His call came through immediately, stripped of its usual composure."Iris? Have you lost your mind? You'd throw away this family over some ridiculous job?"In the background, I could hear Luke's hysterical wailing and the crash of things breaking."I told you---I'm painting portraits for the Elder Council. I can't leave."A beat of silence on the other end.He clearly hadn't expected me to be this calm."You're painting?" He scoffed. "Iris, what exactly are you trying to pull?"I said nothing.His voice turned harder, colder, laced with the familia

Iris's POVThe divorce was simpler than I'd imagined. A few signatures, and Lucien and I had nothing to do with each other anymore.The Elder had him escorted from the conference room.When the door closed, the space went suddenly quiet. Just me and Luke.Minutes ago, right in front of his eyes, the Elder Council had stripped his father's assets and placed everything under my name.And his father---who had first tried to convince me to change my mind, then begged me to leave him something---hadn't fought for custody. Not even once.Luke stood rooted to the spot, his small body rigid, as though frozen solid.His eyes were red and swollen. These past days, he'd been battered by one emotion after another with no patient hand to guide him through it. It had taken a toll.He looked at me, and for the first time, his gaze held no stubbornness, no resistance. Only fear."Mom..."I looked at Luke and remembered the first time I'd seen that tiny, scrunched-up face wailing at me from the hospita