Chapter 176
He used to be the kind of man who barely spoke, whose face never gave away what he was feeling.
Now he talked more, smiled more, always finding some excuse to stay close to her. When she read through the files, he sat beside her with a book. When she met with clients, he stood behind her like a bodyguard. When she ate, he reached over to put food on her plate. When she slept, he wrapped himself around her and held on tight, so tight it felt like he was afraid she might slip away.
"What's going on with you?" One night, Elizabeth couldn't help asking.
Jacob had his arm around her, his chin resting on the top of her head. He was silent for a long time. "Nothing." His voice was barely audible, so soft it sounded like he was talking to himself. "I just want to spend more time with you."
Elizabeth didn't press him. She figured he was shaken by how long they'd been apart before and that he was scared now.
She was scared too. Afraid they'd be separated again, afraid of losing him again, afraid that the happiness she'd finally managed to hold on to would slip through her fingers all over again.
So she clung to him as well, the two of them like magnets that had been forced apart for far too long, finally finding each other and refusing to be pulled away again.
Three months later, everything was finally taken care of.
The tickets back to Mirandia were booked, their bags already packed.
Jack ran all over the castle, saying goodbye to everyone he knew.
He was grinning from ear to ear, like a little bird that was finally about to fly out of its cage.
The night before they left, Jacob called Elizabeth into the study. He closed the door, pulled a manila envelope out of a drawerand held it out to her. Elizabeth took it and opened it. Inside was a paternity test report. She froze.
"This is," Her voice came out hoarse.
Jacob stood by the window with his back to her, his voice low. "It's a paternity test for you and Jack. I had it done."
Elizabeth's fingers were trembling. She stared at the document without opening it. "Why?"
Jacob was silent for a long time. So long that Elizabeth thought he wasn't going to answer.
Then he spoke, his voice light, almost like he was thinking out loud.
"Sawyer might have been insane, but the way he treated Jack, that was real. He wasn't the type to be good to someone for no reason. He must have had proof, something solid, for him to be that sure Jack was your son."
He turned around and looked at Elizabeth. His eyes were full of tangled emotions—pain, guilt, and a fear that defied easy description.
"Elizabeth, I haven't read this report. I don't know what it says. But I felt you should know."
Looking at him, Elizabeth suddenly understood.
It wasn't that he didn't want to read it. He was afraid to.
He was afraid that once he read it, he would find out Jack really was her son.
If that were true, then he would never again have any excuse to run from the truth.
If Jack truly was her child, then what he owed her wasn't just those years they'd spent apart. He owed her the whole of her youth, her entire life, every ounce of trust and love she had ever given him.
"Elizabeth," Jacob's voice dropped even lower, "whatever you decide after you read it, I'll accept it. If you hate me, if you don't want to see me, if you—" He paused, his Adam's apple bobbing. "If you don't want to go back to Mirandia, I won't force you."
Elizabeth looked at him—this man who, in front of everyone else, was cold, ruthless, and decisive to the point of cruelty, yet now stood before her like a prisoner awaiting his sentence, just standing there and waiting for her to pass judgment.
She lowered her head and looked at the envelope in her hands. All she had to do was tear open the seal, and she would have the truth.
She would know whether Jack was her son, whether the baby from back then had lived or died, whether the child she had thought she'd lost all these years had in fact been by her side all along.
But suddenly, she didn't want to know. She walked over to the fireplace and tossed the envelope into the flames.
Jacob was stunned. He watched the fire swallow the paper, watched the pages curl and blacken and crumble into ash. When he finally spoke, his voice was so rough it was almost inaudible. "Elizabeth—"
Elizabeth turned around to face him and smiled. There was no hatred in that smile, no resentment, only a warm, steady calm that eased the tightest corners of the heart.
"Jack is my son. I don't need a DNA test to prove it."
Jacob stood there, motionless. His eyes reddened; his Adam's apple worked several times, but he couldn't get a single word out.
Elizabeth walked over, rose on her toes, and brushed a light kiss against his lips. "From the moment he called me 'Mom,' he became my son. It doesn't matter whether I gave birth to him or whose blood runs in his veins. He is my son. Nothing is ever going to change that."
She paused, her voice growing softer. "As for what happened back then…"
She met his eyes and spoke each word with care, "I hated you. I hated you for a long time. But then I realized that hating you was exhausting. It's so much harder than loving you."
Jacob's tears finally fell. He pulled her into his arms and held her so tightly, it was like he wanted to press her into his bones and blood. He buried his face in her hair, his shoulders trembling ever so slightly.
Elizabeth leaned against his chest, listening to the steady thud of his heartbeat, feeling the warmth of his body.
Her mind drifted back to that dark basement, to the endless pain and fear, to the baby who had been taken from her the moment he was born.
She had thought she would never forgive him for as long as she lived. But she had forgotten something: for as long as she'd been alive, she had never truly been able to hate him.
Moonlight spilled in through the window, pale and silver like water. The fire in the hearth kept burning; the ashes from the report swirled up in the draft and vanished into the night.
Early the next morning, they set out for Mirandia.
Jack sat in the car, clutching the stuffed bear Sawyer had given him, watching the castle shrink into a distance, silent for what felt like forever.
"Mom," he said suddenly, his voice very small, "is Uncle Sawyer really dead?"
Now that his hatred had faded, Jack found himself remembering the good in Sawyer too.
Elizabeth froze for a second, then gave a slight nod.
Jack lowered his head, staring at the bear in his hands, and stayed quiet for a long time. "Uncle Sawyer taught me a lot of things. Archery. Riding. How to use a gun. Uncle Sawyer said I had to protect Mom." He lifted his head and looked at Elizabeth, his eyes bright and shining. "Jack did it."
Elizabeth's vision blurred with unshed tears as she pulled him into her arms. "Yeah, Jack did it."
Jack nuzzled into her chest, his voice muffled. "Jack doesn't like Uncle Sawyer. He bullied Mom. He bullied Dad. But—" He hesitated. "But Jack doesn't hate him either."
Elizabeth didn't answer. She just held him and gently patted his back.
Outside, the sun was warm and bright. The castle grew smaller and smaller until it was just a tiny black speck on the horizon, then disappeared from sight.
On their first day back in Mirandia, Elizabeth did not go to Smith Manor.
She headed first to Nightfall's new headquarters, an unremarkable office building in the downtown business district, plain on the outside but a fortress on the inside.
David was already waiting in the conference room, dressed in a sharp suit, his hair slicked back without a strand out of place. He looked noticeably more grounded than he had a few months earlier. When he saw Elizabeth come in, he stood and gave her a small nod.
"Ms. Windsor."
Elizabeth sat down across from him, giving him a quick once-over. "Long time no see. You've worked hard."
David smiled faintly. "There's been a lot to deal with."
He didn't bother with small talk. He simply reached down, grabbed a black duffel bag from beside his chair, set it on the table, and pulled the zipper open.
Elizabeth glanced down. Inside was a puppet, a life-size puppet dressed in an ornate formal gown, its face painted with flawless makeup. Stuffed into the bag, its limbs were twisted at odd angles, its position grotesque, like a real person who had been folded up and packed away.