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Chapter 815:
June’s hand moved. Slowly, she reached up and touched her cheek.
A single tear was sliding down her face.
Cole saw it. Hope detonated in his chest, violent and desperate. He lunged across the table, his fingers stretching toward her hand. “June p>
Easton’s palm slammed down between them. The crack of flesh on wood echoed like a gunshot.
“That’s close enough, Compton p>
𝖣𝗂𝗌𝖼𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗋 𝗇𝖾𝗐 𝗌𝗍𝗈𝗋𝗂𝖾𝗌 𝗈𝗇
Easton’s hand remained on the table, a wall of bone and tendon blocking Cole’s path.
June wiped the tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. The motion was deliberate, almost violent. When she looked up, the grief had been erased. In its place was something that made the air temperature drop ten degrees.
“You think,” she said, her voice soft and serrated, “that because you cry about your brother, I will feel sorry for you p>
Cole’s outstretched fingers curled into a fist. He retracted them slowly, resting them on his own side of the table. “I just wanted you to know. I thought I was protecting you. I thought p>
“You thought?” June stood. Her chair scraped back, the sound metallic and final. She leaned forward, both hands flat on the mahogany, her face inches from Cole’s. “You couldn’t tell the difference between a woman who saved your brother’s life and a parasite who stole my family’s money? You let that creature live in my house, wear my clothes, sleep in my bed p>
“June p>
“And you have no right to speak his words.” Her voice dropped an octave, vibrating with lethal intent. “Do not ever let that name cross your lips again. You are not worthy of holding his diary, let alone reading it. And you have the audacity —” each word landed like a separate wound — “to sit here and tell me you meant well p>
Cole’s mouth opened. Closed. No sound emerged.
June straightened. She looked down at him with an expression of profound, clinical disgust. “You want to know why I cried just now p>
She waited. Cole nodded — a puppet’s jerky motion.
“I cried for Caleb.” June’s voice dropped to a whisper that somehow filled the entire room. “For the boy who tapped Morse code through a hospital wall to keep a stranger from jumping off a cliff. For the man who threw himself in front of an avalanche to save my life.” Her eyes glittered, hard as diamonds. “Not for you. Never for you p>
She walked around the table. Her heels clicked against the hardwood in a steady countdown. She stopped beside Cole’s chair and looked down at him from a height that felt like miles.
“I imagined what it would be like if he had survived instead of you.” June’s smile was a scalpel. “If I had married the man who actually deserved to be loved. The man with his face, his DNA, his capacity for kindness p>
She leaned closer. Her breath was cold against his ear.