Page 335 of Kentrell

It looked like his.

And even with my heart breaking…

Some small, exhausted, bitter piece of me… still wanted him to sit there and feel it.

Every. Single. Piece.

For a long time…Darius didn’t say a word.

His breathing stayed shallow, like he couldn’t pull enough air into his lungs. His hands stayed tangled in his hair, elbows on his knees like gravity was too heavy for him to sit upright.

When he finally lifted his head…

His eyes were glassy. Red-rimmed.

And for the first time in my life… I saw Darius… broken. Human. Not the cold, sharp man from the courtroom.

“Zoe…” His voice cracked, just once, before he swallowed hard and dragged both hands down his face like he could wipe away the last twenty years of mistakes. “You have no idea… how many nights I’ve sat up thinking about this. About you. About…her.” His eyes flickered toward my mother, but only for a second before coming back to me.

“I didn’t want to stay away,” he said hoarsely. “God knows I didn’t. But when your mother told me to back off… when she said she didn’t want my involvement?—”

“I was trying to protect her!” Zora’s voice cut through, thick with her own tears.

Darius nodded like he already knew. “And I let you. I let both of you live without me because it was easier than fighting the war that would’ve come with Vivian… and her family… and the career I was still trying to build.”

He looked back at me… eyes full of shame.

“I let politics… image… and fear… dictate what kind of father I was gonna be to you.” His mouth twisted, bitter and full of self-loathing. “I let them convince me that keeping you in the dark was cleaner. Safer. Less… scandalous.”

The word tasted like poison in the air between us.

“And now?” His voice dropped low. Dangerous. Full of fire I hadn’t seen before. “Now I gotta sit here… knowing the son I raised… the boy I poured my whole life into… had the audacity to targetyou?”

His jaw clenched.

“That’s the part that’s killing me, Zoe,” he said, eyes darkening as his fists balled tight at his knees. “Because I sacrificed everything for him. Gave him my name. My money. My time. I let Vivian sell me a dream… built a whole life around raising somebody else’s child like he was mine.” His voice broke again. “And in the end… I missed the only child that ever really was.”

The weight of his words settled like concrete in the room.

I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t blink.

Kentrell’s hand stayed locked on me, keeping me grounded as tears I didn’t want to cry started falling anyway.

Darius looked straight at me.

“I’m sorry, Zoe. For all of it. For the years. For the lies. For letting you feel like you weren’t wanted when you were the only one I wanted the whole damn time.”

He shook his head slowly, voice dropping even lower.

“I should’ve fought for you.”

His eyes glistened again.

“I swear to God… I’m ready to fight now.”

Darius wiped his face again, like the tears and the weight of all this regret were too much to carry at once.

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