Luca ended the call and turned toward Darius, his small brows knitting together.
“Dad, I think Mom’s mad,” he said quietly. His tone was worried, the kind only a child used when they didn’t quite understand adult pain—but felt it all the same.
Darius didn’t even look up from the papers in his hand. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” Luca insisted, his voice firmer this time.
“Hm.”
That was all he said. Just a sound. Nothing more. And somehow, it made the silence in that room even heavier.
———
For the next few days, I worked from home—if you could call endless video calls, late-night revisions, and caffeine-fueled deadlines “working”. Luca called every single day to check on me, each call pulling a piece of my heart apart.
Meanwhile, Joe and I barely had time to breathe. We were buried in revisio
