Chapter 4 4

Chapter Four

Fifteen Years Ago – Sutton's POV

I didn't pack neatly.

I stuffed clothes into bags with shaking hands, blind from the tears I refused to wipe away. I remember Ruby showing up with Lane, her voice sharp, angry, motherly. She wanted to burn the whole world down for me, but all I could do was stand there, numb, and breathe through the shards in my chest.

I didn't speak until we were halfway down the highway.

And even then, the words were barely whispers.

Eight months later, I gave birth to a boy with his father's eyes.

I was nineteen. Alone. Holding a life I'd created from the worst kind of heartbreak.

I named him Kingston.

And the moment I heard his cry, the girl I used to be died.

No more sweet.

No more soft.

No more fairytales.

The world didn't protect girls like me. It broke them.

So I learned how to fight back.

I enrolled in the police academy. I was the youngest in my class. The only single mum. The quietest. But I never missed a mark. Never failed a test. I ran farther. Shot straighter. Worked harder.

The instructors said I was a machine.

But machines don't cry in the shower at night when their newborn won't sleep. Machines don't feel the ache of watching a child grow with no father. Machines don't fall apart every year on the anniversary of the day they were told they weren't enough.

I felt it all.

And I buried every piece of it inside the woman I became.

Kingston is fourteen now. He's sharp, sarcastic, funny as hell. Too smart for his own good. He keeps me on my toes. Some days he's all hormones and chaos, but most days? He's the reason I remember what love is supposed to feel like.

He knows his dad's name.

He's seen the photos I kept locked away. I told him the truth-or most of it. That his father walked away. That I never chased him.

That I was too busy surviving.

Sometimes I wonder what he'd say if he saw Jaxon now. If he looked into those same pale blue eyes and saw the man who left us.

But I don't let myself wonder long.

Because it's been fifteen years.

And I built a life without him.

A damn good one.

He doesn't get to come back now and pretend he wants to be part of it.

He made his choice.

So did I.