Kafka froze, staring at the woman across from him, his mother, the one who smiled so serenely even as her demand slithered into his heart like poison.
For a heartbeat, he clung to the fragile hope that perhaps there was a misunderstanding. Perhaps the tenderness in her eyes, the tremor in her hands, the sigh in her voice when she called him her son, they had to mean something.
Perhaps, despite the years of hate he carried, she really had longed for him.
That she had regretted.
That she did love him.
That maybe, just maybe, the gulf between them could be crossed.
But her message shattered that hope into shards sharper than glass.
To threaten them—Abigaille, Olivia, his mothers, the women who loved him, sheltered him, the ones who showed what a mother's love was like...that was unforgivable.
