Chapter 152

Chapter 152
Two weeks after the fire, Cordelia was discharged.

Her hands had healed enough to manage daily tasks, though the scars would take months to fade completely. Her voice was back—rougher than before, with a slight rasp that Logan claimed to find devastatingly attractive.

"You sound like a jazz singer," he'd said, earning himself a pillow to the face.

Life settled into a cautious rhythm.

Logan had moved some of his work home so he could be nearby. Rhys had been formally enrolled in a local school—his first time in a structured classroom. And under the new custody arrangement, Yara spent every other weekend at Cordelia's apartment.

On paper, everything was falling into place.

Cordelia knew better.

---

The first sign came on Yara's second weekend visit.

Cordelia had taken both children to the kitchen to make pancakes—a peace offering of sorts. Yara stood on a step stool, carefully pouring batter onto the griddle under Cordelia's guidance.

"Like this, Mommy?"

"Perfect. Now wait until you see bubbles, then we flip."

Yara's face glowed with concentration. For the first time in months, she looked like a normal, happy child.

Then Rhys appeared in the doorway.

"Cordelia," he said, his voice small and strained. "My stomach hurts."

Cordelia turned. Rhys stood with one hand pressed to his belly, his face scrunched in discomfort.

She wiped her hands on a towel and crossed the kitchen. "Where does it hurt? Show me."

As she knelt in front of Rhys, she heard the sizzle behind her—the pancake burning. By the time she turned back, Yara had already pulled the pan off the heat, but the batter was ruined. The girl's bright expression had dimmed.

Rhys's stomach pain vanished within minutes. He ate three pancakes at breakfast without complaint.

Cordelia said nothing. But she filed it away.

---

The second sign came that afternoon.

Cordelia sat on the couch with Yara, helping her with a school project. They were cutting out magazine pictures for a collage—"My Family." Yara had glued a photo of Cordelia in the center, surrounded by careful crayon borders.

"Can I put Daddy here too?" Yara asked, pointing to a corner.

"Of course. He's your father. He belongs in your family picture."

Yara smiled and reached for the glue stick.

A crash from the hallway.

Cordelia jumped up and found Rhys standing over a shattered vase, his eyes wide and glassy. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."

She cleaned up the mess, checked him for cuts, and settled him on the couch with a book.

When she returned to Yara's project, the collage had been knocked off the coffee table. Glue had smeared across the carpet. The photo of Cordelia was torn.

Yara sat in the mess, silent tears rolling down her cheeks.

"It's ruined," she whispered. "I worked so hard."

Cordelia's chest tightened. She knelt beside Yara and pulled her close. "We'll make a new one. An even better one."

Over Yara's shoulder, she caught Rhys watching from the couch.

His expression was neutral. Perfectly, carefully neutral.

But she'd seen that look before—on Raina's face, right before she'd planted the hair clip in Cordelia's pocket at the Browns'.

The hair stood up on the back of her neck.

---

The third sign came that night.

Cordelia had tucked Yara in and was reading her a bedtime story when Rhys appeared at the door.

"Mommy." His voice trembled. "I had a nightmare. Can I sleep with you tonight?"

Cordelia glanced at Yara, whose face had already shuttered.

"Rhys, I'm finishing Yara's story. Can you wait in your room? I'll come check on you in a few minutes."

Something flickered in Rhys's eyes—fast, like a camera shutter. Gone before she could name it.

"Okay," he said softly, and padded away.

When Cordelia went to his room ten minutes later, he was curled up in bed, seemingly asleep. But his breathing was too even. Too controlled.

She sat on the edge of his bed for a long time, watching him pretend.

---

The next morning, after Logan had dropped Yara off with Nathan's driver, Cordelia made her move.

"Logan. We need to talk about Rhys."

They sat across from each other at the kitchen table. Rhys was at school. The apartment was quiet.

"I've been watching him," she said carefully. "Every time I spend one-on-one time with Yara, something happens. A stomachache. A broken vase. A nightmare. And every single time, the result is the same—I drop what I'm doing with Yara and run to him."

Logan's jaw tightened. He didn't interrupt.

"Yesterday, I tested it. I told him I was taking Yara to the park and asked him to stay home with Kaida." She paused. "He agreed immediately. No fuss. But the look in his eyes, Logan—"

She pressed her lips together.

"It was Raina's look."

The words landed between them like stones.

Logan stared at the table. He'd been dreading this conversation.

"I know," he said finally. "I've noticed it too. The way he times his interruptions. The way he positions himself between you and Yara. It's too precise to be coincidence."

Cordelia reached across the table and took his hand. "I'm not giving up on him. But I can't let Yara keep getting hurt either. She's already been through too much."

Logan nodded slowly. "Raina raised him for five years. She taught him that love was a competition—something you had to win by eliminating threats. That's not going to disappear overnight."

"He needs help we can't give him."

"I know. I'll find a child psychologist this week."

---

That night, Cordelia couldn't sleep.

She got up for water and passed Rhys's room. A thin line of light glowed beneath the door.

She pushed it open.

Rhys sat cross-legged on his bed, holding a photograph. Raina's face smiled up from the glossy paper—beautiful, composed, unknowable.

He heard the door and looked up. For one unguarded second, his face was naked with grief. No mask. No calculation. Just a five-year-old boy who missed his mother.

Then the walls started going up. She could see it happening in real time—the softening of his expression into something controlled, the slight tilt of his chin.

"Don't," Cordelia said quietly.

He froze.

She walked over and sat beside him on the bed. She didn't take the photo away. She didn't lecture him.

"I know you know she's not coming back," she said gently. "You've known for a while, haven't you?"

Rhys's lower lip trembled. The mask cracked at the edges, then shattered.

"I always knew," he whispered, his voice like broken glass. "From the very first time you put on her clothes. You don't smell like her. Not really."

Cordelia's eyes stung.

"But I pretended," he continued, the words tumbling out now, unstoppable. "Because if I said I knew, you'd stop coming. And then I'd have nobody."

She gathered him into her arms. He was so small. So rigid at first—and then all at once, he collapsed against her, and the sobs came.

Not the calculated crying he'd used to get Logan's attention. Not the theatrical wailing designed to interrupt her time with Yara.

Real crying. Raw. Ugly. The kind that shook his entire body.

"I'm scared," he gasped between sobs. "If you love Yara too, there won't be enough left for me. Mommy said—Mommy said love runs out. She said you have to fight for it or you lose it."

There it was. The root of everything.

Raina had taught him that love was a finite resource. That you had to hoard it, manipulate for it, eliminate competition for it—because if you didn't, it would be taken away.

Cordelia held him tighter. Her tears fell into his hair.

"Your mommy was wrong," she said, her voice rough. "Love doesn't run out. It's not a pie that gets smaller the more people you share it with. Loving Yara doesn't mean I love you less. Do you understand?"

He shook his head against her chest. "No."

"That's okay. You will. I promise you will."

She rocked him gently until his sobs quieted to hiccups, then to silence. His grip on her shirt loosened. His breathing evened out.

This time, the sleep was real.

Cordelia eased him down onto the pillow and tucked the blanket around him. She picked up Raina's photo from where it had fallen and placed it on the nightstand—face up, where he could see it.

Then she stepped into the hallway and closed the door.

Logan was leaning against the opposite wall. He'd heard everything.

Neither of them spoke. He just opened his arms, and she walked into them.

"We'll get through this," he murmured against her hair.

"I know," she whispered. "I know."