Chapter 465 Something That Can Get Them To Jail

Noah’s POV

I pointed at the screen.

“You wrote it. The car. The weather. You said the wife was acceptable.”

“I did.” He said it the way another man might admit he had canceled a meeting. “Julian Windsor has been a problem since the day he learned how to stand in a room and make people listen. His father was the same. His mother made it worse by being loyal. I waited a long time. I am not a young man anymore. Waiting stopped being interesting.”

“She could have died. The baby could have died.”

Father tilted his head.

“And yet here we are, having a conversation, which means I failed. Failure is ugly. I don’t enjoy it.” He set the glass down. “Now that you know I did try to kill her, what are you going to do? Oh, and bear in mind, I am still going to try again since I failed.”

The last sentence landed clean.

No shame, just a plan. Something in me tore.

I crossed the room and punched him in the face.

The impact cracked across my knuckles. His head snapped to the side. The glass on the sideboard jumped. He staggered one step, touched his mouth, and looked at the blood on his fingers like it was a joke he had been waiting to hear.

Then he laughed.

It was not loud. It was worse than loud. It was pleased.

I stood there breathing hard, fist still clenched, the study spinning at the edges. He straightened, wiped his lip with his thumb, and smiled through the blood.

I turned toward the door because if I stayed, I was going to hit him again, and I did not trust what would come after that.

I had my hand on the handle when he spoke.

His voice followed me out of the room, light and certain, the voice of a man who had already decided I was still his.

“I know you won’t say a thing because you don’t have the spine.”

I drove with my father’s blood still on my knuckles.

The city moved around the car like it had nothing to do with me. Lights. Traffic. People going home to ordinary nights. My hand throbbed on the wheel. I kept seeing the laptop screen. I kept hearing his voice. I am still going to try again since I failed.

I should have gone straight to Julian.

I should have called Marcus.

I should have taken the files and ended it.

I did none of that.

I kept driving because the man in that study was not only the man who had tried to kill Katia. He was the man who had packed my school bag. The man who sat through fever nights. The man who signed every form that needed a parent. There had never been a second name on those forms. No mother at recitals. No mother in photographs. No face I could point to and say, that is her. My father had filled the whole space. Father. Mother. Rule. Roof. He had been the only person in my life who never left, and he had used that fact like a chain.

That was the part that made me sick.

Not only what he had done.

What he still owned inside me.

I parked outside my house and sat there until the engine ticked itself quiet. Delia’s car was in the driveway. The downstairs lights were on. For a second I wanted to turn around and keep driving until morning. Then I got out, because hiding in the street would not make the truth smaller.

She was on the couch when I walked in, legs tucked under her, the television throwing blue light across her face. She looked up and the easy expression she had been wearing slipped.

“You look tense,” she said. “Come here. I’ll give you a massage.”

I stopped in the middle of the room.

The offer was simple. Kind. It made my throat close.

“Delia,” I said. “If you find out that someone you trust so much with your life, they did something despicable. What will you do?”

She muted the television. The sudden quiet made the house feel smaller.

“Everybody does everything for a reason,” she said. “It depends on what they did.”

I sat on the edge of the couch, not close enough to touch her yet. My hands hung between my knees. The cut on my knuckle had already started to darken.

“What if they did something very, very terrible? Something that can get them to jail.”

Delia watched me for a long time. She did not rush to fill the space. That was new. The old Delia would have talked over the fear. This one sat inside it with me.

“Then maybe try to understand their reasoning and why they did it,” she said. “Because everyone does everything for a reason.”

I almost laughed. It would have come out wrong.

“What if the reason is ugly?” I asked. “What if the reason is power? What if the person who raised you, the only parent you ever had, looks you in the face and does not even pretend to be sorry?”

Her brows pulled together.

“Noah. Who are we talking about?”

I shook my head.

“I can’t say.”

“You can. This is your house. I’m your wife.”

“That’s why I can’t.” The words scraped. If I put his name in this room, I have to decide what kind of son I am. And I don’t know yet.

She moved closer. Her hand hovered over my shoulder, then settled there, warm through my shirt.

“You look like you walked out of a fight.”

“I did.”

“Did you win?”