Draven's Point Of View
"You're sorry?" I asked, looking down at the broken, shivering wreck of a man tied to the steel chair. A low, humorless laugh escaped my throat. "Ten years of hunting us like dogs. Ten years of threatening our mother, stealing what father bled for, and leaving us in the dirt... and now you're sorry?"
The words tasted bitter on my tongue, like ash from a fire that had burned too long to ever truly go out. I could still remember the sound of our mother crying behind a locked door, the way she used to flinch at every knock, every phone call, every shadow that crossed the window.
I remembered, too, the nights I lay awake as a boy, listening for footsteps that never came, wondering if the next morning would be the one where she simply wasn't there anymore. I remembered the way she'd smile at us over breakfast the morning after, as though nothing had happened, as though hiding her pain was a gift she could give us instead of the truth.
