DANIEL’s POV
There are lines you don’t cross. Not if you’re a decent man. Not if you have any sense of loyalty.
Ethan has always been one of those lines for me.
The boy wasn’t mine, but over the years he might as well have been. I had carried him on my shoulders when he was small, taught him how to throw a ball, helped him patch up skinned knees. His mother trusted me with him, the way she trusted me with everything. And that may have been too much.
And for a long time, that trust held me in place.
But time has a way of breaking down walls you thought were permanent. Ethan grew taller. Sharper. His eyes stopped being wide with childhood wonder and started narrowing with questions. His voice dropped, carrying a quiet bite that reminded me of men older than him. And his body—Christ—his
