Page 81 of Glorious Ruin
The voice that filled my ear was thin, slightly raspy, and laced with a heavy hesitation. But something about the pitch, the specific cadence of the vowels, and the sharp intake of breath pulled at something in my gut. It was familiar and tugged at a part of my mind that I’ve long since locked behind a brick wall.
The hotel room instantly felt like it was spinning on a tilted axis. My stomach dropped into a bottomless freefall. I would know that voice anywhere. I wouldknow it in a crowded room. I would know it in my sleep. I had spent more than half of my life trying to drown that exact voice out with the roar of arena crowds.
Still sitting in bed with my husband, the voice brought on a blinding shade of red.No. It can’t be.Tears welled in my eyes and spilled over my cheeks.
She didn’t know it was me?The thought echoed in my skull, a knife twisting in my chest.How could she not know it was me? I was her son.
But then the reality of my life forced its way through the shock. She hadn’t heard my voice since I was a child. She had walked out the door, leaving me alone with a monster, and she had never once looked back. She didn’t know the deep, gravelly timbre my voice had taken on. She didn’t know the man I had become. I was a stranger to her.
I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. My hand gripped my phone until the plastic casing cracked, my mind begging me to be wrong.
“Yeah,” I managed to push out in a hollow tone. “It is.”
Beside me, Silas sensed the shift in the room. The playful energy vanished from his face, replaced by a look of concern. He sat up fully, reaching out to rest a hand on my bare shoulder while I trembled so violently my teeth chattered.
“This is…it’s your mother. Fiona,” she said in a calm voice, as if she expected me to welcome her back.
With that confirmation, the room tilted on its axis and my stomach dropped into a bottomless freefall. I fought the desire to scream at her through the phone with every ounce of discipline I possessed. Every inch of me was ready to roar, and ask her how she dared to say those words to me.Your mother.As if giving birth to me earned her the right to use the title she abandoned decades ago.
“Callum, I-I’m calling to let you know…your father died,” she rushed out, the words tumbling over each other. “Ewan passed away last night from a heart attack.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, a choked sound escaping my throat.
“So what?” I finally spat, my voice a venomous snarl that made Silas flinch beside me. “Why the fuck are you calling me? You want money? Is that it? You need my money to bury the sorry bastard?”
“Callum, I don’t want your money. I just… I thought you had a right to know.”
“I don’t give a fuck about anything involving that man!” I roared, tears streaming freely down my face. They dripped off my jaw, landing on my bare chest. “You can also go fuck yourself, Fiona! As far as I’m concerned, Ewan can burn in hell, and I hope to God it’s your fate eventually, too.”
I ripped the phone away from my ear and threw it with every ounce of strength I had. The device flew across the hotel room, smashing violently against the far wall and dropping to the carpet.
Silas was on me instantly. He heard everything, and his arms wrapped around my shoulders to pull my shaking body against his chest.
I buried my face in his neck, my fingers digging into his bare back, and I sobbed. I sobbed for the boy inside who was never loved by the people who were supposed to protect him.
“I’ve got you,” Silas murmured, his voice thick with unshed tears. He rocked me back and forth, kissing the side of my head, my shoulder, my temple, blanketing me in his warmth and strength.
“Talk to me, Cal. Tell me what you need. Whatever you want to do, we’ll do it. If you want to go to the funeral and spit on his grave, I’ll fly us there right now. If you want to pretend this phone call never happened, we’ll walk out that door and never look back.”
“I don’t want to see him,” I cried, my voice muffled against his skin. “He hated me, Si.Hated me. Even if…even if we had somehow saved our relationship, it would have ended the second you and I signed the papers at the courthouse. He wasa monster,and would never have accepted me marrying a man.”
“Then he didn’t deserve you.” Silas pulled back enough to frame my face in his hands, his thumbs wiping away the moisture. “He didn’t deserve a single secondof your light, baby. He was an abusive prick, and the world is a better, safer place without him in it.”
I let out a ragged breath, leaning my forehead against his, trying to sync my erratic breathing with his steady rhythm. From across the room, my phone pinged. A single notification that cut through the heavy air. I flinched as my eyes darted toward the device, and I buried my head back in Si’s chest.
Silas gently disentangled himself from me, sliding off the edge of the bed and walking across the room. He picked up the phone, which I could now see was cracked, but the screen was still functioning. I watched in anticipation as he stared at it for what felt like an eternity, before letting off a heavy sigh.
“What is it?” I asked, my voice trembling.
Silas hesitated, walking back over to the bed to sit down next to me. “It’s a text… From her,” he admitted softly.
“Saying?” TAnxiety was twisted my stomach into knots.
Silas swallowed hard. “She said as far as she knew, your dad had updated his will and his estate. He put everything in your name.”
The words hit me like a physical blow to the sternum. “What?”
“It means you’re the only person who can legally handle his affairs. It falls to you,” Silas explained gently. His hand reached out to squeeze my knee.
