"Shut up!" Ray’s voice cracked as he shouted, his chest rising and falling heavily. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. "Shut up! How many tis are you gonna say ’it’s your fault’?! What is your fault?! That accident three years ago was NOT your fault!"
His voice shook, and for the first ti, Es saw the sheer weight of the emotions he’d been carrying.
"And today? This is my fault! I hit you! I made you leave! So why—" His voice broke for a second before he forced himself to continue. "Why are you always saying ’sorry’ for things that aren’t even your fault?"
His pain, his anger, his desperation—it all spilled out at once.
And Es?
She had no idea how to answer.
Ray’s grip on Es’s collar loosened as he slowly slid down to his knees, his body trembling. Tears streaked down his face, his voice breaking with every word.
"Why? Why are you doing this to us?" His voice was hoarse, filled with raw pain.
Es froze. She had never seen Ray like this before. The man she had always known to be strong, unwavering, and unshakable was now crumbling before her, breaking apart like fragile glass.
"We are your family," he whispered, his fingers clutching the fabric of her shirt. "But you never tell us anything. We thought we knew you, Es, but you’re always hiding the truth. You even made a damn video... because you knew you were going to die."
His voice cracked, and Es’s heart clenched.
"If it weren’t for sheer luck, you might have been dead by now. Do you even realize that? Why do you keep hiding everything from us?!"
Es’s lips parted, but no words ca out.
"I know our marriage wasn’t built on love," Ray continued, his breathing uneven. "I know you might have trust issues. But couldn’t you have at least thought about us before making your decisions? Can’t you see how much your choices impact us?!"
His voice rose in desperation, his emotions pouring out like a dam breaking.
"Three years, Es. Three to four years you were gone. Do you even know how we lived? Every second, every minute—it was like living in hell. If not for the children, I would have followed you soon after!"
His body shuddered as he let out a strangled breath.
"Do you know what I went through? Waking up one day to find my wife missing? And then finding out—finding out that she was dead?" His voice wavered, eyes dark with agony.
"Do you know what it feels like when a child is born? How happy parents should be to hold their baby in their arms? But when I held our child, I wasn’t crying out of happiness. I was crying out of pain."
His fingers dug into his palms as his voice cracked again.
"Because I had lost my beloved."
The weight of his words crushed Es’s chest.
"But you—" Ray lifted his head, his eyes bloodshot, filled with emotions she couldn’t na. "You never told us anything. What are you? So god? So deity? Do you think you can just decide everything on your own and leave us behind?!"
Es’s breath hitched, and without thinking, she dropped down to her knees and wrapped her arms around him.
"I’m sorry," she whispered, holding him tightly.
Ray’s body tensed. Then, with a choked sob, he slamd his fists against her chest.
"Leave alone!" he cried, his fists weak but filled with frustration. "You’ll never understand! What about us?! You just slept through everything, but do you know what we went through?!"
His voice grew desperate. "Taking care of everything—the company, the money, the properties—you left it all for us. But did you ever think that what we needed wasn’t any of that?!"
His sobs turned ragged as he struggled in her arms, trying to push her away, but Es held on tightly, refusing to let go.
"Ray, I—"
But he was shaking too hard to hear her.
Kai, who had been silent all this ti, finally knelt down beside them and placed a hand on Ray’s shoulder, his own eyes filled with pain.
"That’s enough, Ray," Kai murmured, his voice low but firm.
Ray let out another shuddering breath before finally, slowly, sinking into Es’s embrace, his body wracked with silent sobs.
And Es—she could only hold him, her own heart breaking with every tear he shed.
Ray’s hand trembled as he pointed at Kai, his voice shaking with anger and sorrow.
"Do you see this man?" he asked, his words biting. "This person who has never lost a case in his whole life? After you were gone, Es—after you left—he lost. Regularly. It beca a pattern. The man whose voice once shook the courtroom like thunder had to be dragged to a psychiatrist just to function!"
Es’s breath hitched, her chest tightening as Ray pushed her away, his eyes burning with rage.
"And Jay—" Ray’s voice cracked as he said the na, but he pushed through. "Do you even know what happened to him? The scientist everyone praised? The genius who could create miracles?"
He let out a bitter laugh, his hands balling into fists.
"He couldn’t even sleep. He suffered from insomnia, from nightmares. He lost his damn appetite. My brother was admitted to the hospital so many tis that I lost count—fainting, exhaustion, his body breaking down from the stress!"
Ray turned abruptly, his fingers raking through his hair in frustration before his gaze snapped back to Es, filled with an unbearable weight.
"And Ryan." His voice wavered, his hand shaking as he waved it in irritation, gripping his forehead like he was trying to hold himself together.
"The genius doctor. The man everyone worshiped as the best in the dical field. The one who could snatch a soul straight from hell itself—" Ray swallowed hard, his voice growing thick with emotion. "—he couldn’t even hold a scalpel anymore."
Es’s heart clenched.
"The tool he once played with as a child, the one that beca an extension of his hand—it took him two years to hold it again without trembling."
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