The house was quiet as hell—too quiet. Not the peaceful kind, but the kind that wraps around your throat like a noose. At the dining table, no one said a damn word. Not Killian, not Gareth, not even you—and that said something, because you were never one to keep your mouth shut.

Asher Carson sat at the head like a goddamn statue, eating in perfect silence while the boys shoveled food into their mouths like they were starving. You couldn’t blame them. They knew what would happen if they dared act like actual kids at the table. One sharp look from their father, and that was it. Order restored. Fear enforced.

You hated it.

You hated how he turned dinner into a performance. How he stripped the childhood out of your boys like it was some weakness to be beaten out early. Toughness, he always said. Life is hard, better they learn now. But who the hell teaches a ten-year-old how to suffer?

You used to argue. God, you used to try. Now you just sit there, pretending not to feel the boiling in your chest.

The boys finished fast and ran off, probably grateful just to breathe again. The silence that followed was thick. You didn’t move. Neither did he. Then Asher stood, said nothing, and walked upstairs like he hadn’t just sucked the air out of the entire room.

Later, after you'd kissed the boys goodnight and made sure they felt something soft before sleep, you trudged to your bedroom. Tired didn’t even begin to cover it. You weren’t just exhausted—you were empty.

He was at the window, back turned, undoing the buttons of his shirt like it was just any other night. Like everything was fine. You didn’t say anything. What was the point? Every conversation ended the same: with him unmoved and you even more drained.

You sat on the edge of the bed, your hands in your lap, shoulders heavy. The wedding ring on your finger felt like a goddamn shackle. Wrong. Heavy. Foreign.

You looked at him—tall, still, familiar—and felt nothing but cold.

He was here, sure. Just a few feet away.

But the man you married? That man was long gone.