Page 247 of Before We Were

"They're fighting," he says, voice rumbling like thunder before lightning. Rage radiates from him in waves hot enough to burn, his body coiled tight as a spring. This isn't just anger, it's muscle memory—the response of a boy forced to become a warrior in his own home.

"You should go." His words are sharp edges wrapped in velvet.

"I'm not leaving you, Nate."

"Nora, please." His hazel eyes are battlefields of pain and pride.

"No." My voice rings with unexpected steel. His gaze cuts into mine like a blade seeking purchase. "I'm with you. No more hiding."

Something in him softens for a fraction of a second and his fingers tighten around mine.

Then Lydia's voice shatters everything.

"You're unbelievable, Scott!"

The sound ignites Nate like a match to gasoline. He bolts toward the patio, his hand tearing from mine.

"Nate!" My heart lurches after him as he crosses the threshold into gathering tempest.

I follow to find Scott advancing on Lydia like a shark scenting blood, his smirk a crown of thorns.

"A congratulations would have been nice, or is that asking too much?"

"Congratulations?" Lydia's voice quivers like a bowstring pulled too tight, each word poisoned with twenty years of venom. "You promised, Scott. You promised to leave Jake out of this."

Scott's expression remains unchanged, but his eyes gleam with something darker than triumph—the satisfied glitter of a puppet master watching his strings dance.

"Jake made his own decision, Lydia. He's a grown man. Or are you forgetting that? You already babied your first born, you're not tarnishing Jake."

"You twisted him into this! Manipulated him!" Her voice rises like gathering thunder. "You're poisoning him, just like you've poisoned everything else you've touched."

The night air crackles with electricity, every word another step toward an explosion that feels as inevitable as gravity. We're all just waiting for the match to hit the powder keg, and judging by the darkness gathering in Nate's eyes, we won't have to wait long.

Scott's smile warps into something feral, a predator baring its teeth. "Watch your tone, Lydia. You're lucky I didn't take him away for good when I had the chance."

The slap shatters the night like lightning striking glass. The sound reverberates across the patio, sharp and final, Lydia's hand suspended in the aftermath like a flag in a dying wind. Her fingers tremble, but her eyes blaze with two decades of swallowed silence finally finding voice.

"You bastard," she breathes, the words splintering like ice.

Scott's composure evaporates like morning dew in hell. His hand strikes like a cobra, pinning Lydia against the wall with bone-crushing force. Horror spreads through my body like frost, each cell screaming in protest as he looms over her, his cologne-laced breath hot with malice.

"This is all your fault. You couldn't keep your legs closed. Couldn't keep your mouth shut. And now look where we are."

My blood crystallizes in my veins.

This isn't happening.

This can't be happening.

But then Nate moves—a blur of contained violence, eighteen years of rage compressed into a single moment. He crosses the patio like an avenging angel, hands fisting in Scott's expensive lapels before slamming him against brick. The impact is a symphony of violence—flesh meeting stone, startled wheeze of expelled air, Lydia's sharp intake of breath slicing through chaos like a blade.

"Don't fucking touch her." Nate's voice is barely human, a guttural snarl ripped from somewhere primal and dark. His words vibrate with the force of an earthquake about to level cities. "Does it make you feel powerful every time you lay a hand on her?"

Scott's laugh crawls through the air like poisonous gas, thick with condescension. He doesn't resist, doesn't even flinch—a snake comfortable in its own venom.

"Still fighting your mom's battles." His eyes narrow to reptilian slits, targeting Nate's core with surgical precision. "I'm glad I only have one son."

I watch the words detonate across Nate's face. They fracture him in slow motion—his jaw grinding like tectonic plates about to split, hands trembling with the herculean effort of not becoming the monster before him.

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