Page 215 of The Gods Order

My shoulders rise as I take a massive breath.

“A letter or message genuinely could’ve endangered everything. But it might not have. You chose certainty over hope. I would’ve chosen chance over cost.”

I’ve made that decision before for them and I’d do it again. Unfortunately, I can see the difference, though. They are the loves of my life. He had to choose between the love of his and the child they made together.

A despicable situation I will never find myself in.

Ultimately, he isn’t me and I’m not him.

One clear common denominator we have, though, is our willingness to protect the ones we love.

“I hate that I know that we’re both right because I’ve spent years resenting you for leaving me. You unintentionally let me grow up believing I’d been abandoned, but really, you were letting fear dictate how you loved me from afar. You protected my life at the cost of my heart. It was the price that had to be paid. Now…we live with the consequences of it.”

Silence settles between us and neither of us rushes to fill it. We both stand tall and still as we study one another.

When he finally speaks, his voice is a mere murmur.

“I never wanted you to carry it like that. I told myself you would understand one day that everything I did was to keep you alive long enough to become who you are now.”

His gaze continues to hold mine and his jaw works like he isn’t sure what he wants to say next.

“I was wrong about the part that would hurt you the most. I thought it would be the absence of answers. Not the absence of me, and I am so sorry I wasn’t there.”

His shoulders curve in slightly as my bottom lip trembles.

“I don’t expect forgiveness, and I won’t pressure or ask you for it,” he says, then runs his hand down his face as though he can wipe the emotion away. “But I need you to know, none of it was ever because you weren’t enough. You were always the reason I kept choosing at all.”

My heart aches in a way I don’t have words for. And for a moment, I can’t look at him. The way he seems to slowly crumble right before my eyes will be my undoing.

My eyes drift past him again. Not toward my men or Creed’s door, but farther like I’m trying to search beyond the walls themselves.

Not to the door this time.

“My mother,” I say, clearing my voice. “I want to see her.”

He shakes his head once.

“That’s—”

“Don’t you dare say impossible.”

He closes his eyes for a heartbeat.

“Conditions of my choice, her punishment, are still in place at this very moment. Now that I’m here with you, I can no longer see your mother. She cannot cross that barrier.”

Gods…she really is all alone.

“I’m not asking you to see her. I’m asking you to take me to her so I can see her. You can do that for me, or I’ll find my own way.”

A small hint of pride shines through the water in his eyes, and I swallow down how that makes me feel.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” I say, nodding. “As soon as Creed is awake and feeling better, we’re going. For now…I just need a minute.”

I don’t wait for him to respond or say anything else. I turn on my heels, then freeze.

There’s no point in wiping away my tear-drenched cheeks.