Thalia’s POV:
“What happened with your father?”
The moment the words left my lips, the air between us turned to ice.
Xander went utterly still. His playful smirk vanished, replaced by something fractured—something *wounded*. Like I’d just ripped open a scar he’d spent years trying to forget.
For a heartbeat, I thought I’d imagined it—the flicker of raw, unfiltered pain in his eyes. But then his voice came out low, stripped of all warmth.
“My father?”
He turned fully toward me, and the shift was terrifying. The man who had kissed my knuckles like a storybook prince was gone. In his place stood something hollow. Something broken. Something cold and dangerous.
I swallowed. *Shit.*
I hadn’t meant to ask. I shouldn’t have. But my stupid, reckless mouth had a mind of its own. I ju
