Chapter 6 – Rock Bottom and a Knock
Two weeks later, Alex looked like a different man.
Photos surfaced—him in a cheap motel off the highway.
Unshaven.
Clothes wrinkled.
Chloe still beside him, but her smile looked thinner.
Credit cards declined.
Cars repossessed.
The SoHo penthouse already relisted.
Job applications ignored—nobody wanted the scandal.
I saw it all from a distance.
Didn’t enjoy it.
Just watched.
Then came the accident.
Sophia’s car—rear-ended on the bridge.
Flipped.
Caught fire.
Witnesses said a man pulled her out seconds before the tank went up.
The man was Alex.
Burns on his arms.
Cuts on his hands.
He sat beside her hospital bed when I arrived.
Sophia pale against white sheets.
Leg in a cast.
But alive.
I stopped in the doorway.
Alex looked up.
His eyes were bloodshot.
“Mom,” he said, voice rough. “I didn’t plan it. I just… saw the crash. I ran.”
Sophia reached for my hand.
“He saved me,” she said quietly.
I looked at my son.
At the bandages.
At the exhaustion carved into his face.
Something twisted inside me—sharp, brief.
Not forgiveness.
Just recognition.
He was still the boy I’d once carried.
I exhaled.
“Stay,” I said. “For now.”
His shoulders sagged.
Relief or calculation—I didn’t care which.
Not yet.
I turned to leave.
Pausing at the door.
“One condition,” I said without looking back.
“No contact with Chloe Frost.”
Silence.
Then: “I understand.”
I walked out.
The hallway smelled of antiseptic.
My heels clicked once.
Twice.
I didn’t look back again.