Elena burst into the room like a storm, eyes blazing. "What is wrong with you?" she demanded, stride closing the space between her and her husband Her voice cut sharp. "How can you even say such a thing about our son? Have you lost your mind?"
He didn't look at her. He only gripped the back of a chair, the white knuckles betraying the tremor in him. "This can't stand," he said, his voice tight. "That thing inside him is an abomination. It has to be removed. If you won't do it, I will."
Elena's face went pale with outrage. "You're talking about killing your grandchild. Killing your own child to erase your shame? No. I will not let you do this. That child will not be aborted—not while I live." Her words were steel; for a moment the room held its breath.
" I know it something strange, something that's so surprising but I didn't expect you to react this way, you saying or acting like this won't be the solution. He needs our support now ot this" she said
They argued until their voices were hoarse, words thrown like knives. Mr. Walker dug his heels in, insisting the child must be taken. Elena would not relent. Minutes stretched, tempers flared, then, finally, exhausted and furious, Elena turned on her heel.
"I can't stay and watch you lose yourself," she said, voice cold. "I'm going back to Kelvin's. I won't be a part of this." She left before he could answer.
The door clicked shut. Silence crashed into him. He sagged against the wall and then slid to the floor, as if his legs had given way from beneath him. When his knees hit the wood, all the posturing fell away — the hard mask shattered. He rocked there, shoulders trembling, the sounds of the house distant and far.
He hit the floor like a man whose backbone had been wrenched from him. The roars and bluster of a moment before—his threats, his furious certainty—crumbled into a small, raw thing that trembled where it sat. The house felt wrong, too bright, too loud with the echo of what he'd almost done.
When the name flashed across the phone screen, the color drained from his face. SALVERA. He had promised her things in the dark; he had taken orders that had felt like safety at the time. Now the name on his screen read less like a contact and more like a verdict.
His hands shook as he answered.
"Is it done?" The voice on the other end was silk and winter, patient and utterly merciless. "Is the child gone?"
"No—no," he whispered. "They won't agree. My wife—she left. She won't let me—" His words splintered. He could almost hear Elena's footsteps fading down the hall, the way she'd slammed the door on him minutes ago. "She says no."
Silence breathed down the line, and then Salvera spoke, slow as doom. "You promised me, Walker. You promised you would make sure that child never lived. This anomaly cannot be allowed to grow. If it survives, everything I have built will crumble. Kelvin will be whole again. My control—over you, over Emerland—will be undone. Do you understand what that would mean?"
The scene the words painted needed no translation. If the child lived, the strange, dangerous power focusing around Kelvin and the unborn would undo the careful web Salvera had woven. Walker's rise, his place at her side, the plans they'd set in motion in Emerland—all of it depended on keeping that threat snuffed out before it could change the balance.
"I'll fix it," he croaked. The apology in his voice was for himself, for the bargain he'd struck so long ago that had finally come due. He felt the lie in it even as he said it.
"Make it quick," Salvera said. "If you fail me, I will not only remove your family — I will remove your son's lover's family as well. You will learn what it is to beg and have no mercy granted." The line clicked dead.
The phone slipped from his fingers and hit the floor with a hollow sound. He sat and stared at it, the plastic glowing on the floor like a foreign thing. The truth he had tried to keep buried uncoiled in his thoughts.
He had to admit the truth that had always been easier to hide: this wasn't sudden hatred at his son's unconventional life. The hatred had been cultivated, planted like a seed by a careful gardener. Years ago, when Dave was barely a year old, the man who had been Dave's biological father had left — not out of cowardice but because Salvera had told him the child was an omen, that the boy belonged to no normal fate. She had sown whispers, fed the man fear, and the man had fled. Walker had arrived after that, a steady hand stepping into a broken house — exactly where Salvera wanted him to be.
Salvera's manipulations were subtle and deep. She had given Walker power, promises, a place in a future she painted in gold. She taught him to see danger everywhere — to fear what the boy might become. In return, he had done small things for her: turned a blind eye, carried messages, made discreet arrangements. The favors had escalated into a contract. He had slowly become part of her machine in Emerland, a piece of a plan that aimed, ultimately, at Kelvin.
Kelvin—her real objective. Salvera had long feared the growing, inconsistent power around Kelvin and wanted to either control or crush it. Walker had been told the truth of Kelvin's potential: that Kelvin's strength, if left unchecked and unweakened, could topple her designs. Walker's job was simple at first—monitor, manipulate, insert influence wherever a fracture might be widened. Over time his orders grew darker.
Everything has been a plan, them moving here, Dave meeting Kelvin, them crossing path when Dave was nine, and worst of all Dave recent attack. Everything has been a well structured plan and he was waiting for the right moment to strike.