Chapter 8 - The Broken King
I stepped out onto the covered porch, keeping the screen door latched securely behind me while my mother watched Nico inside.
Vincent walked slowly to the bottom of the porch steps, stopping several feet away as if respecting an invisible barrier that he dared not cross. Rain dripped from his dark eyelashes and ran down his hollow cheeks, soaking through his expensive white collar.
"I read every page," Vincent said, his voice raw, shaking with a grief so deep it barely sounded human. "I read them every single night until the ink blurred from my own tears."
"You shouldn't have come here, Vincent," I said evenly, crossing my arms against the chilly ocean breeze. "There is nothing left here for you."
"You're right," he whispered, falling to both knees in the wet grass and mud, careless of his clothes or his dignity. "You're completely right, Clara. I don't deserve to be a father to Nico, and I sure as hell never deserved a woman who loved me the way you did."
He pulled out a folder of thick legal documents from inside his soaked leather jacket and laid it carefully on the bottom step.
"I signed everything," he choked out, his shoulders heaving as he finally broke down, weeping openly in front of me without trying to hide his shame. "Full physical custody. Full decision-making power. I signed over forty percent of my personal estate into a trust fund that only you and Nico control, with zero strings attached."
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"Why?" I asked, my own heart aching with a complicated sorrow despite my resolve.
"Because you were right," he cried, pressing his face into his muddy hands. "I broke my promise. I let a foolish, selfish nostalgia blind me while my wife and baby were fighting for their lives. I didn't come here to ask you to come back, Clara. I came here to tell you that I'm sorry, and to ask if I can earn the right to simply see my son from across the street once a year."
