Victoria sat frozen, her body tense with shock. Her son—her Jared—had shouted at her. The disbelief was etched into every line of her face, her lips parted as if searching for words but finding none.
The room's tension was thick, the silence that followed Jared's outburst pressing heavily against her chest.
Jerica, too, stood rooted to the spot, staring at Jared as if seeing him for the first time. The man standing before her—his face contorted with anger—was a stranger.
Her heart raced as she recalled another moment, one from the recent past, when his expression had terrified her. That night by the bathtub when she had almost drowned, the same cold fury had flashed across his face, and now, as she stood before him, she felt that same fear creeping back.
Her voice was barely a whisper, her brow furrowed as pain lanced through her arm. "Let go."
