Zahn's fingers tightened slightly around the steering wheel. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, his brows knitting together.
"Something funny?" he asked, voice clipped and controlled.
Lianna turned her head slowly to face him, eyes narrowing as though she were examining a specimen under unforgiving light.
"You," she said coolly. "Search your memories. When was the last time the three of us actually went out like a family?"
The question struck like a scalpel.
Zahn swallowed, his throat bobbing, but no words came. His gaze remained fixed on the road, yet his focus had clearly drifted somewhere much deeper, into a past he'd never cared to preserve.
A family of three.
There should have been something. At least one memory. One real moment to support his claim.
But there wasn't.
Only fragments: hurried meals eaten in silence, missed calls, the sharp scent of antiseptic clinging to his coat. Lianna's back as she carried Sean to bed alone. Sean's small voice asking where Daddy was… and then, slowly, learning to stop asking.
Zahn's silence stretched.
Lianna watched him with a bitter kind of satisfaction, as though his discomfort was the only honest thing he'd offered her in years.
His knuckles whitened around the wheel.
"I've been busy," he said at last, as if that single sentence could excuse a lifetime. "I'll make it up to both of you from now on."
Lianna's eyes flashed. "Make it up with Sean. I don't need it."
"Lianna," Zahn warned softly, his voice tightening at the edges.
But she didn't stop. "You don't get a say in this just because you suddenly feel like playing your role. Whatever you do won't change my mind."
Zahn didn't respond. The car devoured the road ahead in tense, heavy silence.
Lianna didn't want to keep talking either.
Every conversation with him only spiraled into another argument, and she was exhausted, down to the marrow.
She had wanted to take the metro instead, but Zahn clearly wouldn't allow it.
She even considered going straight home and cooking something for Sean, anything to avoid this suffocating performance. But when they arrived at the villa, Sean was already waiting at the entrance.
He stood there in his little sweater, shoes neatly fastened, hair carefully combed, his backpack slung over his shoulders like this was the most important mission of his life.
The moment he spotted them, his face lit up as if someone had switched on the sun.
"Mom!" Sean ran over, eyes sparkling. Then he looked at Zahn too, and his excitement doubled. "Dad! You're really here!"
Lianna's chest tightened painfully.
That brightness… that trust… it was so fragile. A soap bubble suspended in air, beautiful and doomed. One wrong word could burst it.
Zahn crouched slightly and patted Sean's head. "Of course I'm here."
Sean bounced on his heels. "Are we really going out? Like… like a family?"
The words stabbed Lianna straight through.
She could already see it: if she refused now, Sean's smile would collapse. Not dramatically, just quietly, the way children learn to swallow disappointment when adults teach them to.
Lianna glanced at Zahn, and she understood with sick clarity what he was doing.
He was using their son like a key, sliding him into the lock of her resistance and turning slowly until it clicked open.
But Lianna couldn't bear it. Not when Sean was looking at her with that wide, hopeful gaze.
She forced her voice to remain steady. "Yeah. We're going."
Sean let out a delighted gasp and clapped his hands. "Yay! I want seafood! And dessert! Mom, can I get dessert?"
Lianna's lips twitched. "We'll see."
Sean grinned so hard his cheeks puffed. "Okay!"
Zahn straightened, his eyes briefly meeting Lianna's.
Lianna ignored him. This was for her son. Only for Sean.
Zahn drove them out of the villa grounds.
Sean chatted nonstop in the back seat, his voice bright and musical, filling the car with a warmth that didn't belong to the adults inside it.
He leaned forward between the seats. "Dad, do you know what restaurant we're going to?"
Zahn answered smoothly, like he'd rehearsed it. "A seaside restaurant."
"Seaside?!" Sean squealed. "Will we see the ocean?"
"Yes."
Sean nearly vibrated with excitement. "Mom, mom! I'm going to take pictures!"
Lianna smiled faintly at her son, but her hands remained clenched in her lap. She stared out the window, watching city lights smear into ribbons against the glass.
She wasn't smiling because she was happy.
She was smiling because her son deserved a happy memory, even if it was staged.
The restaurant Zahn booked was five-star.
It sat perched along the coast like a jewel box, wrapped in warm golden lights and polished glass. The faint scent of sea salt drifted through open terraces, blending with expensive perfume and the soft hush of wealth.
A hostess greeted them with a practiced bow. "Doctor Neri. Welcome. Your table is ready."
Zahn nodded, and they were led to a private table with an uninterrupted view of the ocean.
Waves shimmered beneath the moonlight, and soft instrumental music floated through the air like a lullaby meant for people who never had to worry about tomorrow.
Sean's eyes widened.
Lianna watched him take it all in, her throat tightening again.
Sean turned to her with pure, unfiltered joy. "Mom, this is so pretty!"
Lianna swallowed hard. "It is."
In truth, Sean had never been this expressive, this talkative. Especially not in front of Zahn's mother, where every laugh and every bounce of excitement would be corrected, reprimanded, carved down into something "proper" for the future heir of the Neri family.
Zahn pulled out Lianna's chair.
Lianna paused, then deliberately took the seat farther from him, choosing the one beside Sean instead.
Zahn's hand hovered for a moment, as if he expected gratitude, softness… something.
When it didn't come, he withdrew quietly and sat across from her.
He opened the menu. "Order whatever you want."
Lianna lowered her gaze to the menu, but the words blurred.
How many times had she once longed for this? Something ordinary. A family dinner that happened naturally, without strategy or coercion.
Yet now, sitting here, she felt nothing.
Zahn could have done this anytime. He could have given Sean this joy long ago. He simply hadn't cared enough to.
Across the table, Zahn watched her in silence. His expression remained controlled, but he sat like an outsider at his own table, watchful and cautious, sensitive to every flicker of emotion between the two of them, as if trying to measure what he'd lost and whether it could still be retrieved.
Just as the three of them were beginning to settle into the rhythm of dinner, Zahn's attention suddenly drifted.
Through the restaurant's floor-to-ceiling glass windows, he caught sight of a couple walking along the beach.
From a distance, they looked like something lifted from a romance film, hands intertwined, barefoot in the sand as the waves rolled in to kiss their feet.
The man carried the woman's shoes in one hand, as if even the smallest inconvenience was something he was eager to spare her from.
For a brief second, the sight was unsurprising considering the place.
Just a couple lost in their beautiful moment but as they drew closer, recognition struck Zahn like a blade.
His entire body went rigid.
Whatever fragile delusion of warmth he'd managed to hold onto that evening shattered viciously, splintering in an instant.
Sean's vibrant chatter continued, bright and eager, but Zahn couldn't hear a word of it anymore.
The boy's voice became distant noise, drowned out by the pounding in Zahn's ears as his eyes locked onto the couple outside.
Their hands were still clasped, fingers threaded together as though the world contained only the two of them.
If back then, the evidence Shin had shown him had been enough to make him feel as if he'd been dragged into an abyss, then what he was seeing now was worse.
This was reality, so glaring it burned.
The already fragile image of the mother he had respected, defended, and followed his entire life cracked, then collapsed entirely, the pieces falling apart inside him with cruel finality.
"Dad?" Sean called again. "Dad, look!"
Zahn didn't move, his grip on the cutlery tightened unconsciously, knuckles paling, his jaw clenched so hard the muscles in his face twitched.
Sensing something was wrong, Lianna followed Zahn's gaze.
Outside, along the shoreline, a couple walked at an unhurried pace.
From where Lianna sat, the man's tall frame obscured the woman almost completely, shielding her from view.
Lianna glanced back at Zahn.
The change in him was immediate and terrifying, like something feral had awakened beneath his skin. Veins stood out along his neck and across his forehead, pulsing as if he were physically restraining himself from lunging out of his seat.
The silence in him was no longer quiet. The kind of stillness that came right before something snapped.
Then, abruptly, his chair scraped back with a harsh screech against the floor.
Sean startled so hard his fork slipped from his fingers, confusion washing over his little face.
"Dad…?"
Lianna didn't care what private storm was raging inside him, but Sean was right there. The last thing she wanted was Zahn leaving their child shaken.
Annoyance flared sharp and immediate.
She reached out and grabbed Zahn's wrist.
"Where are you going?" she demanded, voice low but firm.
Zahn didn't look at her at first.
When he finally did, Lianna was taken aback.
His eyes were different, dark and menacing, like something had torn loose inside him.
It startled her so much her grip loosened without her meaning to.
Zahn strode away with frightening purpose, his long steps cutting through the restaurant as if nothing else existed.
"Mom…" he whispered, voice trembling slightly. "What's wrong with Dad?"
Lianna's stomach tightened. She turned her head sharply toward the window.
And there he was. Rushing across the sand like a man possessed.
The couple had slowed near the shoreline, still close, still intimate.
The man barely had time to turn his head before Zahn's fist swung. A brutal punch landed squarely across the man's face.
The impact was so sudden, so savage, that the man staggered back, nearly falling into the wet sand.
Lianna's eyes widened in shock.