To love is to surrender, to leave is war.

——

The room was quiet. Excruciatingly so.

I sat stiffly in the corner of the living room, the twins curled tightly in my arms, their warm bodies the only reason I was still breathing.

My heart hammered in my chest, but everything else inside me had gone still. Numb and broken.

I had failed.

It hung over me like a sentence.

Martin lounged on the opposite couch, legs spread casually, arms resting on the armrest like a king in his throne. But there was nothing casual about the way he watched me. His eyes were sharp, calculating, the way a lion...