He didn’t reply, his silence broken only by the subtle tremor in his shoulders as they led him out.
Outside, reporters swarmed Karen with microphones and cameras, their questions sharp and relentless. Did she regret what she had done? Did she feel guilty for standing against her own son in court? Karen shook her head firmly. “Regret? No. It was the hardest decision of my life. But my son needed to hear the truth. Sometimes, loving someone means letting them fall, so they can finally feel what they’ve been ignoring.”
That night, Ryan lay alone in his cell. The walls felt close, the silence suffocating. For once, he wasn’t smirking. He wasn’t cracking sarcastic jokes. He replayed every word his mother had said, each one striking harder than the judge’s sentence. It wasn’t the bars that scared him—it was the thought of losing her, the one person who had always fought for him.
And somewhere, in the quiet, a crack formed in the wall of arrogance he had spent years building. It wasn’t much, just a hairline fracture. But it was enough.
