Page 62 of Steel's Secret
“Tired?” she repeats. “You haven’t been ‘tired’ since law school. You sound devastated. What happened?” Her voice softens, a shade of something like worry slipping in. “Is this about him? The guy you won’t talk about?”
I shut my eyes briefly as I take a slow turn, tires sliding before catching. “I can’t talk about him,” I whisper.
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“Both.”
Leah exhales, the kind she uses when she doesn’t know whether to push or let go. “Aria… you’ve been off for weeks. You’re jumpy. Distracted. And now you sound like you’re on the verge of a breakdown. Just tell me you’re safe.”
My throat closes. “I’m trying to be.” Think, and heavy silence blooms between us.
Leah lowers her voice. “Did he hurt you?”
“No.” The answer is immediate, forceful. “He’d never.”
“Then what is going on?”
Everything. Nothing I can say. Nothing she would believe.
“I just need some time,” I whisper. “Please.”
Leah hesitates, then sighs. “Call me later. And text me when you get wherever you’re going.”
“I will.” I hang up, even though it feels like cutting off the last piece of normal in my life.
The cemetery appears through the trees, with iron gates half-buried in snow. I make the slow turn inside, tires crunching over ice. Only a few headstones peek out from the drifts.
The world looks cremated in white.
When I park, the silence hits me, thick and absolute. No cars. No footsteps. No birds. Not even wind through the branches. It’s like the dead are holding their breath.
I pull my coat tighter and walk toward the crooked maple tree near the back corner of the cemetery. The one Steel always avoided talking about. The one he walked around instead of past.
Tama King lies beneath it.
A headstone cut in dark granite, stern and cold as the man he raised Steel to be.
I kneel. The snow bites through my jeans immediately, and I brush the fresh snow from the carved letters.
TAMA KING
BELOVED FATHER
LOYAL BROTHER
PRESIDENT
So many titles. None of them are, destroyer, a martyr, a legacy Steel can’t outrun. No matter how much I loved Tama like a father, this is one thing I can’t let go of. One hatred I’ve held onto since we were kids hanging out at the clubhouse.
“Your son is following you,” I whisper. The words fog the cold air, curling like smoke over the stone. “And I can’t pull him back.” My throat tightens. Tears burn before they fall. “He loveslike you fought,” I say, voice shaking. “Like there’s no middle ground. No surrender. No room for mercy.”
Snow drops from a branch above in a soft whisper. “If I stay… he’ll burn his whole world down to protect me.” My lips tremble. “I won’t let him do that. I won’t be the reason he becomes you.”
A gust of bitter, sharp wind slices across my face, a reply I didn’t ask for.
As if Tama himself is saying.It was always going to be this way.
I swallow hard.
