He raises an open hand toward me, offering it with the exaggerated courtesy of a gentleman.
"I'm your husband's older brother."
He lets the silence linger just long enough for the words to settle.
Then his smile deepens.
"Soren Stoneheart."
I stare at him, my vision swimming—blurring at the edges, then sharpening, then blurring again. The name echoes through my skull, tangled with fragments of memory I can barely hold onto.
Soren Stoneheart.
Silas mentioned him once. A passing reference, quiet and careful, slipped into conversation like a confession buried too deep to uncover. Different mothers. No bond. No warmth between them. That's why he wasn't at our wedding.
And now he's here. Not as an absent brother. Not as a distant figure from a fractured family tree.
But as my captor.
As the man who orchestrated all of this.
Why?
