Chapter 3

I watched, a silent scream trapped in my ethereal throat.

Eleanor. His mother.

The irony was a bitter poison. He stood before the woman who gave him life, a woman his father had cruelly discarded, and he saw nothing but an obstacle.

I remembered finding Eleanor in that cold, sterile facility. Her eyes, so like Ethan' s, but filled with a gentle sorrow, not his chilling emptiness.

She' d been a ghost, forgotten by the world, by her own son.

"My son... Ethan," she'd whispered to me during one of our quiet talks in the bleak dayroom, her voice raspy from disuse. "His father said I was unwell. He took my baby."

I hadn' t known then who her son was. It was only later, piecing together fragments, that the horrifying truth dawned.

I helped her plan her escape. It was risky, a desperate gamble. But the thought of her dying in that place, alone, was unbearable.

We' d made it out, somehow. I brought her to Mike, to the only sanctuary I had left.

Mike, bless his protective heart, had taken her in without question. "Anyone who was Sarah's friend is a friend of mine," he' d said, his gaze softening as he looked at the frail woman.

Now, Ethan, her son, the product of privilege and power, stood ready to tear apart the little peace she' d found.

"She' s not here, Ethan," Mike said, his voice strained as he tried to shield Eleanor. "She' s dead. Can' t you understand that?"

"Dead?" Ethan sneered again, his face contorted with rage. "I' ll be the judge of that. People like Sarah don't just die. They run. They betray."

His gaze was cold, devoid of any recognition as he looked at Eleanor.

"And you," he said, turning his venom on her. "You' re probably in on it. What did she pay you to lie for her?"

I wanted to scream, to tell him, "That' s your mother! The mother you never knew, the mother your father destroyed!"

But my voice was nothing, a whisper in the void.

He was so much like his father. Cruel, unyielding, seeing people only as tools or obstructions.

I remembered the stories Eleanor told, of a powerful, ruthless man who valued image and control above all else. A man who had a wife institutionalized to hide a "scandal."

Ethan was his father' s son, through and through.

He advanced on Eleanor. "Where is she?"

Mike stepped between them. "Leave her alone, Hayes! I told you, Sarah' s gone!"

Ethan' s fist shot out, connecting with Mike' s jaw. Mike staggered back.

"You think you can stop me?" Ethan spat.