My Cold-Hearted Husband Wants Me Back
Chapter 209: His Way

Chapter 209: His Way

He looked at the photo in Lucas’s hand, then back up at his brother’s face, tight with grief, eyes sharp with betrayal.

"You should come in," Eryx said quietly. "It’s... not something I can explain standing in the hallway."

Lucas hesitated.

He didn’t want hospitality. He didn’t want to sit on his brother’s couch and calmly listen to everything because his emotions at that moment won’t allow it.

But he wanted answers more than he wanted to keep the distance.

In the end stepped inside.

The door closed behind him with a quiet click.

Lunara had already disappeared into another room, giving them space.

Eryx walked toward the living area and gestured to the seat across from him. "It’s not going to be easy to hear, Lucas. But I’ll tell you everything I know. From the beginning."

Lucas didn’t sit. He stayed standing, arms crossed tightly over his chest, Mila’s photo still clenched in his hand.

Eryx leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees. "Are you sure you don’t want to sit?" he asked, his voice low but controlled. His patience, too, was beginning to thin because this story wasn’t easy to tell. Because guilt was a sharp thing, and tonight, it was digging deep.

"I didn’t come here to get comfortable," Lucas said flatly. "I came for the truth."

"Okay." Eryx didn’t want to waste time arguing on something that petty so he started to tell Lucas the story from A to Z.

He told Lucas about the day it happened. How Mila had gone to the indoor playground with Lunara and Naomi. How he recently just found out about Seraphine orchestrated it all, just so she could swoop in later and play the hero.

And how it all spiraled. The chase. The accident. The silence that followed.

Lucas didn’t interrupt once.

But his jaw clenched tighter with every word. His breathing turned shallow. His eyes never left Eryx.

When it was over, Lucas slowly turned the photo of Mila in his hand, his voice cold.

"So that’s it?" he said bitterly. "You let her go out that day, just like that? With them?"

Eryx’s brow twitched. "She wasn’t in danger, not until—"

"No. No, don’t do that," Lucas snapped, stepping forward. "Don’t act like this was unpredictable. You knew once we were born and were engraved with the name Grantham, we are never safe! And you still let my daughter walk into it like it was a normal day."

"Lucas—"

"I lost everything, Eryx!" His voice cracked now, rough with months of buried grief. "And now you want me to sit here and listen to you justify it? To her?" He turned toward the hallway, where Lunara had quietly stepped out of sight to give them space.

Eryx stood. "You can be angry. You can blame me. But leave her out of it."

Lucas’s laugh was hollow. "I’m not here to be reasonable. I’m here because she’s gone. And someone should be held accountable."

They stared at each other again, the same way they had at the door. But this time, there was no search for emotion.

Only blame.

Only pain.

Eryx stood up and walked closer to him, "Your emotions at this moment are not stable. Go back home and let’s talk again later."

Lucas’s eyes flared. "You’re still trying to control the moment, even now?" he spat. "Telling me to go home like I’m some kid having a tantrum?"

Eryx didn’t answer. His jaw tightened, but he held his ground, gaze unwavering. That silence—measured, calm, and unshaken, only ignited the fuse.

With a guttural sound pulled from somewhere deep in his chest, Lucas lunged forward and punched him.

The crack of impact echoed through the penthouse.

Eryx’s head snapped to the side, the force knocking him slightly off balance. A smear of red already marked the corner of his lip, but he didn’t fall, didn’t react, not with fists, not with fury. He just straightened slowly, wiping the blood with the back of his hand.

Behind them, there was the faintest gasp—Lunara. She hadn’t left. Of course she hadn’t, she had been hearing secretly behind the door.

Lucas stood there, fists clenched, chest heaving. But the rage in his eyes wasn’t enough to mask what sat just beneath it—the grief that was raw and bleeding hard.

"You didn’t have the right to talk like my emotions don’t matter—"

"I never said that!"

"You did!" Lucas’s voice was sharp, his chest rising faster with each breath. "The daughter who I never once held..." He stopped. His words caught, choked by the lump rising in his throat. His voice trembled, unsteady. "I didn’t even know she existed until it was already too late."

His knuckles turned white around the crumpled photo still in his hand. "You think you get to sit there and tell me to calm down, to talk later? You had her in your world, in your house, with people who could’ve protected her but she still died."

Eryx didn’t speak. He didn’t defend. There was nothing left to say that could fix what had already been destroyed.

Lucas exhaled shakily, looking away for a second as if it might help him hold himself together.

"I wasn’t even given the chance to be her father," he said, almost in a whisper now. "And now I never will be."

The silence that followed was suffocating. Heavy with things they couldn’t undo.

Lucas stood frozen for a long beat, his jaw clenched so tight it looked painful. Then, quietly, he asked, "What’s her name again?"

Eryx didn’t hesitate. "Seraphine."

Lucas nodded once, determination showed over his face. He looked at the photo of Mila again, eyes dark with something colder than grief.

"I’ll handle it my way," he said, voice low and final.

Eryx’s brows drew in. "Lucas—"

But his younger brother was already turning, already heading for the door.

"Don’t try to stop me," he said, without looking back. "You had your way. Now it’s mine."

The door clicked shut behind him.

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