Chapter 6 - The Weight of a Vow
Victor took two slow steps forward and knelt on the cold floorboards, keeping a respectful distance from her.
“I didn't know about the legal papers,” he said. “Of course you didn't,” Nora answered, looking down at Leo’s sleeping face. “You were too busy being a patron saint to Sylvia to notice what was happening in your own home.”
Victor winced. The name hung in the air like poison. “Sylvia is over.” “Sylvia was never the point, Victor,” Nora looked up, her dark eyes locking onto his with terrifying clarity. “The point is that when I needed a husband, I had an absentee landlord. When my body was breaking down after eighteen hours of labor with premature twins, my husband was turning off his phone so he could play house with someone else.”
“I was an idiot,” Victor said. The words tasted foreign on his tongue. He had never apologized to anyone in his adult life—not rivals, not partners, not enemies. Apologizing meant admitting weakness. But looking at Nora, he realized weakness was the only honest thing he had left. “You weren't an idiot,” Nora whispered, a bitter smile touching her lips. “You were just doing what your father did. And what your grandfather did before him. You thought women were trophies to be displayed and households were administrative duties to be managed.”
She shifted slightly, adjusting the wrap to support Leo’s head. The movement made her wince, a sharp flash of pain crossing her face as her post-birth body protested the cold and the exhaustion.
Victor saw it. Without thinking, he reached out toward her. “Don't,” she flinched, pulling back against the timber wall. “Don't touch me.”
His hand froze in the air. He slowly lowered it back to his knee. “You can't stay here, Nora,” he said, his tone shifting back to practical urgency, though his voice remained low. “The storm is picking up again. Temperatures are dropping below zero tonight. If we stay in this shack, the babies won't survive the night.”
“Then bring a helicopter,” she challenged. “Land it on the ice. Arrest me. Drag me back to the penthouse in handcuffs. You’re good at that, aren't you?”
Victor stared at her. He could do that. He had the men, the authority, and the brute force to pick her up, pack the twins into a heated transport, and lock her inside the penthouse with a dozen guards at the door. He could control her. He could win.
And in doing so, he would lose her forever.
“I won't arrest you,” Victor said. Nora narrowed her eyes, searching his face for the trap. “What do you want?”
“I want to fix this,” Victor said, his voice dropping into a harsh, ragged whisper. “I know you don't believe me. I know I don't deserve for you to believe me. But I am not leaving you here. And if you want a divorce... I will sign the papers.”
May you like
The silence in the shack deepened. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath outside.
Nora stared at him, looking for the manipulation, the angle, the hidden threat. But she found only the raw, ruined edges of a man who had finally hit the bottom of his own arrogance.
