THIRD PERSON'S POINT OF VIEW
The road home was long and silent.
Kiel's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror again—his fourth glance in less than a minute. The city blurred past his periphery, but his attention wasn't on the road. It was on the small boy curled up in the passenger seat, asleep but not at peace. Dalle's head leaned gently against the seatbelt, his face soft and still. But even in slumber, his fingers curled toward the space where Odette had last held him, where her warmth had lingered for only seconds before she made the call that broke them apart.
"Take him. Now."
She hadn't just asked. She had ordered him—with the steel of Sable and the fragility of a mother burning in her eyes. And Kiel, despite every instinct screaming to stay by her side, had obeyed.
Now every second he spent away from her felt like treason. Like failure.
