Page 171 of Bound By Her

When Jonathan had started, Eric had tried to find her, but she was with Teo.

She hadn’t gotten there in time.

“What about Kaydon?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“What happened to him, it isn’t something that just goes away with protocol. Or,” he gestured to the room, “rearranging furniture.”

She hated that he was right.

“Fine, I’ll talk to him,” she said.

Eric gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Next time you need something moved, call me, okay?”

Adria found Kaydon in the exercise room adjacent to their living quarters. She had heard from Eric that he spent a lot of time there.

Sweat glinted in the dim light as she watched him bench press a set of weights so large they barely fit on the bar.

Adria watched his muscles flex while his arms pumped up and down. His face twisted, his breath short.

She stepped into the room, saying, “I was eight when my father explained to me that one day I would run the Federov family.”

Kaydon’s hazel eyes flickered to her, but he continued his exercises.

“I didn’t fully understand the monumental nature of the title.” Adria’s mouth twisted. “Knowledge like that changes you.”

Kaydon stopped exercising, breathing heavily.

She caught his eyes in the mirror, and the two stared at each other’s reflections.

“I was four,” Kaydon said to her reflection.

Bryson had time. He was thirteen when his brother died. He had gotten an entire childhood before it was ripped from him. It wasn’t a competition of pain; it was a simple fact. Learning something like that at a young age affected her, and Adria was sure it had affected Kaydon as well.

He continued to stare at her. It couldn’t have been easy staying at the Winters’, living with that level of responsibility.

Adria didn’t talk about her childhood very often but something in the silence persuaded her to say more. Share more.

“In my father’s office that day, something happened.According to him, it was important that I learn what it meant to be a Federov.”

She shook her head, willing herself to continue. “It was a change so deep and intimate it infected my soul. Filling spaces I didn’t even know existed. A darkness that only relented when I accepted the truth.”

Kaydon stood.

“Which is?” he asked.

Grabbing a towel, he patted his arms and chest.

Steeling herself, Adria continued, “It can’t be cured. It’s part of you, and no matter how much you scrub, or sweat, it will be in there.”

Her voice trailed off at the end. She felt empty and full at the same time.

There, she had said it. She wasn’t there to sugarcoat it for him.

He deserved the truth.

“Do you know what Kintsugi is?” Kaydon asked.

She didn’t.

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