Chapter 419: Loud Si

Chapter 419: Loud Silence

When Athena came back into the sitting room, the stillness hit her harder than the cool night air she’d just left behind. The lamps threw a soft glow across the walls, yet the room felt dim, muffled, as if it had been holding its breath since she’d stepped outside.

Antonio’s words still clung to her ears, sharp as glass: It’s not a relationship then. She tried to shake them off, but her chest was still tight. He had been unhinged in a way she had never seen before, and she couldn’t help circling back to the question: was Ewan really enough reason for Antonio to unravel like that? To lose the restraint he always wore like a suit?

Or was this picture the real Antonio? In those few years they had spent staying together on most occasions, did she really see him, know him?

Her hand twitched against her side, and she straightened her shoulders. She couldn’t let her family see it—the turmoil, the sting of what had just happened. She had to be stone, at least in here. Still, she knew her absence had been too long. Their eyes would follow her, their questions unspoken but heavy in the air.

She crossed the room with deliberate calm, her face smoothed into neutrality, though inside, her pulse still stumbled.

Ewan sat on the couch, a stubborn set to his jaw, his thigh wrapped in a bandage already darkening with fresh blood. The sight of it made her throat close.

She lowered herself beside him, close enough that their knees almost touched. "Is he alive?" Her voice came out quieter than she meant, nearly fragile. "Zane?"

Ewan’s eyes met hers, steady. "Alive," he said simply.

Relief swept through her, though it didn’t erase the unease curling in her stomach. Alive wasn’t safe. Alive wasn’t whole. Did he lose any body part?

Her gaze dropped to his thigh, the crude binding, the sluggish seep of red. She didn’t touch, but her fingers hovered like they wanted to. "Tell me everything," she said, the softness gone now, replaced with steel.

Ewan studied her for a moment, then exhaled, slow, resigned. And he told her.

By the time he finished, Athena was sitting stiffly back in her seat, her hands clamped together so tightly her knuckles burned. The silence stretched again, filled with the weight of what he had just given her.

at him. "The hospital. The

bringing him in. If


lips together, fighting the unease twisting her gut.

lifting her chin. "Hasn’t he asked about his

Ewan huff out a dry laugh. "I told him Zane’s crashing with me for a few days. That we’re

and she gave a small, incredulous smile. "A

shrugged. "That was the only

but it had no joy in it.

again," Ewan said. His eyes softened just a little. "We

gaze flicked down to his leg again. "And

tilted his

wound." Her tone was sharp, betraying

than it feels,"

eyes, but he met her stare, calm, steady. "You should worry less

answer. Instead, she turned toward Aiden, who had been unusually quiet, his posture upright but his expression


does he feel about

in a shrug, though his mouth stayed flat. "Thinks

watching him closely. "How did

it, again—the flicker in his eyes, the tension in

had met him on the porch. The worry. She realised

wasn’t meeting

catch them. The doctors—they slipped through our fingers. All we managed was scattering the lab and tipping them off.

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