Chapter 179

The Prey

They didn’t just break me—they hollowed me out and filled me with lies.

I stared at the blank dot on the wall, unmoving, unblinking. Was it hours? Minutes? Seconds? Or eternity? I didn’t know anymore. Time felt like a cruel joke, stretching and bending around the chaos in my mind.

My father was alive.

Brian Rosewood. The man I watched die, the man I mourned until my soul fractured, the man I blamed myself for failing to save—he was alive.

I should’ve felt relief. Joy, even. But all I felt was a black hole, pulling me deeper into its void. My chest tightened with the betrayal, the confusion, and the ache. How could this be possible? I wanted to cry, but I thought I had lost my tears long ago. They’d dried up the day I lost him—or so I thought.

He was alive. That truth should have stitched me back together, but instead, it broke me further.

Where had he been? All this time, where was he? Why didn’t he come for me? Why