My Cold-Hearted Husband Wants Me Back
Chapter 214: Cutting The Last Thread

Chapter 214: Cutting The Last Thread

The cold air in the prison visiting room stung more than it should have. Lunara sat down across from the man in handcuffs, the orange of his jumpsuit bright against the gray table between them.

Gideon’s glare could’ve pierced concrete. "What do you want, showing up here?" he spat. "Trying to rub it in? That you’ve made it? That you married into money and now you think you’re better than me?"

Lunara didn’t answer at first. She was studying him, searching for a flicker of something, like regret, remorse or anything. But there was nothing. Just the same venom in his eyes she remembered from the last time he raised his hand against her.

"What?" he snapped. "You mute now? Or just smug?"

Her voice was steady when it finally came. "I didn’t come here to gloat."

"Oh? Then what, pity? I don’t need it. Not from you."

"I came to ask you something," she said, her tone colder than the room around them. "Just one thing."

He snorted, but didn’t interrupt.

Lunara’s hands curled into fists under the table. "Was there ever...just once...a time when you loved Mom?"

Silence.

Then a slow, bitter laugh crawled from Gideon’s throat. "Love? You should ask that to your dead mom. Why bother asking me?"

Lunara didn’t flinch this time. She’d prepared herself for this, this ugliness. Still, something cracked inside her at the way he said dead mom, like it was just another tool in his arsenal.

"She’s not here to answer anymore," Lunara said quietly, her voice steady. "You are."

Gideon leaned back in his chair, chains clinking with the motion. "You always were like her. Soft. Naive."

"No," she said, her gaze sharp now. "I was a child. And you made sure I didn’t stay one for long."

He scoffed, but didn’t speak.

Lunara’s jaw tightened. "You burned her flower shop. You tried to hurt me, sold me. And even now, after everything, you sit here acting like you’re the one who was wronged."

"I am! Why do you think she got married to me?! She was pregnant with you! If she’s not, she wouldn’t be looking at me!" He stood up, anger flaring through his eyes and nose.

Lunara’s breath caught.

Gideon’s voice had risen, echoing off the sterile walls of the visitation room. The guard shifted in the corner but didn’t interfere yet.

"You raped her," she said, her voice low but shaking with fury. "And now you stand here blaming her for not loving you? For not looking at you the way you wanted?"

Her fists trembled at her sides.

"Did you ever stop to think maybe you didn’t deserve it? That love isn’t something you can force or take?"

Gideon’s mouth twitched, as if preparing to defend himself, but Lunara cut him off before he could speak.

"If you loved her, even for a second, you wouldn’t have hurt her. You wouldn’t have raised your hands, your voice, your hatred like that. You destroyed her piece by piece and now you want sympathy? Redemption?"

She took a step forward, just enough for him to see the fire in her eyes.

"She was kind. Too kind. She kept quiet. She covered for you. She protected me from the truth for years. And in the end, you burned the only thing she had left of herself."

Lunara blinked, holding back the sadness and fury swelling inside her. Her voice shook, but her eyes never wavered.

"When she chose you... for whatever reason, why didn’t you take that chance to become better? To be someone worth choosing?"

Gideon scoffed, but it lacked conviction.

"You could’ve changed," she went on, "but instead, you proved every fear she had right. You hurt her, then you blamed her. And when you couldn’t control her anymore, you tried to erase everything that was hers."

She stepped closer, her fists clenched at her sides.

"She wasn’t weak for staying. She was strong enough to survive. And I see that now... I see her strength in everything I do. I carry her with me, every single day."

Gideon turned his head away, jaw tight, but Lunara saw it, something cracking behind the bitterness. Maybe it was regret. Maybe it wasn’t. Either way, it didn’t matter anymore.

"I didn’t come here for closure," Lunara said softly. "I came to say goodbye. To cut the last thread tying me to you."

She looked at him one final time, not as a daughter, not even as a victim.

But as someone who had finally, irrevocably broken free.

Then she turned and walked out of the visitation room, letting the heavy door swing shut behind her, leaving Gideon, and all his darkness, exactly where he belonged.

She walked through the corridor, past the guards and the silence, until she reached the open air.

Only then did she breathe.

A short while later, the sound of the car engine filled the quiet as she drove through winding roads¹ she hadn’t taken in a long time. The city blurred by, but her mind was still back there, in that visitation room, in that past she no longer belonged to.

It wasn’t until the car rolled to a slow stop in front of the cemetery gates that she finally exhaled.

The air here was different. Still.

She stepped out, heels crunching on gravel, and walked the familiar path until she found it, the modest stone, nestled under the shade of a jacaranda tree.

"Hi, Mom," Lunara whispered, "I missed you."

She crouched down and brushed her fingers over the name engraved in the stone. "I went to see him today. I needed to end it."

A breeze moved through the trees, rustling the leaves like a quiet answer.

She sighed, gaze fixed on the stone as if willing it to speak. "Mom..." her voice trembled slightly, "I wonder... if years ago, you and Eryx’s father didn’t break up, where would we have ended up?"

She paused, letting the thought hang in the air like fog.

"Would you still be smiling every morning with flour on your face, humming to that old radio?"

A lump rose in her throat. "Would I have grown up knowing what love felt like, instead of surviving it?"

Her fingers curled into the grass. "I know I shouldn’t dwell on the ’what ifs,’ but sometimes I wish I could’ve seen you truly happy... just once. Not pretending. Not holding it all in."

The breeze stirred gently, as if the wind itself was listening, comforting her in silence.

Then, unexpectedly, Lunara let out a quiet chuckle.

"Funny, isn’t it? I used to blame your choices... but if you hadn’t made them, I might not even be here."

She smiled, soft and bittersweet, eyes still fixed on the name carved in stone.

"So, Mom... I hope you’ve finally found peace... wherever you are. And thank you for choosing to bring me into this world."

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