Page 71 of Second Chance Daddy

I was old enough to know he meant it. Old enough to know I would, too.

He tosses the bloody cloth into the fire and watches it curl and blacken.

“Blood calls to blood, boy. That’s why betrayal cuts deepest when it comes from your own.”

I blink, and the memory fades. But the lesson remains, carved into bone.

Blood calls to blood.

And Cassie’s kept my blood from me for three years.

My hands curl into fists at my sides, nails biting into palms hard enough to draw blood. The pain grounds me, keeps me from putting my fist through the wall.

Because that’s what I want to do. I want to rage. Want to tear the house down around us. I want to grab Cassie by the shoulders and demand to know why—why she lied, why she kept this from me, why she let that piece of shit Gino near what’s mine.

But I don’t.

I stand there, still as stone, watching my daughter—my daughter—play in the yard with the woman who’s carried this secret like it’s nothing.

My reflection stares back at me in the window, until it doesn’t.

The kid.

She runs up and looks up at me through the glass, face pure sunshine, passing me a little wave. I wave back and smile, and she waves again before running off to be with her mother.

I peel my gaze from the glass as Cassie scoops Aria up, spinning her in a circle.

Mine. And I didn’t get to hold her when she opened those eyes for the first time. Didn’t hear her first word, see her first step. Three years stolen out from under me.

The rage simmers low, but I keep the mask in place.

All day, I wear it—the cold, unflinching version of myself people mistake for quiet control.

Cassie notices. Of course she does.

I catch her watching me over dinner, eyes tracking my face like she’s counting the ways I’m not acting right. Her walls creep higher, thicker, with every silent second between us. She feels the shift. The tension is bleeding off me.

But she doesn’t say it.

Neither do I.

“Everything okay?” Cassie asks, her eyes narrowing slightly.

“Uh-huh.” It rolls out easily, a half-truth designed to leave space for her to bring it up first.

But she holds it in, those sharp eyes of hers flickering across my face, searching for a crack. A tell. I give her nothing. No reaction. No slip-up.

Let her sit in it and wonder. I wait for her to break first.

After dinner, Aria beams up at me. “I’m gonna make cookies with Mommy. Want one?”

I nod, not trusting myself to speak.

Cassie’s already got ingredients spread across the counter, and Aria stands on a stool beside her, stirring a bowl with fierce concentration.

“Cookies!” Aria announces when she looks up at me like she’s making sure I’m still here, as if I might have forgotten in the thirty seconds since she mentioned it.

“I see that, nugget.” I flash her a smile.