Chapter 2 - THE PRIDE OF A VALE
Ronan recoiled as if burned.
He slowly lowered his hands, holding them open in the air between them, his heart thumping hard against his ribs beneath his bespoke waistcoat. He looked down into his son’s flushed face. Eli’s eyes were blazing—not with childish tantrum, but with the raw, desperate pride of a boy who spent every waking hour fighting to prove that he was not broken.
"Eli," Ronan began quietly, carefully modulating his tone, keeping the command out of his voice. "The ground is slick. The mud is over the tread. If the socket shifts on the angle, you’ll twist the stump against the liner."
"I don't care," Eli said stubbornly, his breathing coming fast through his nose, his small fists clenched at his sides. "You promised, Dad. You said when we came to the park today, you wouldn't treat me like a baby. You carry me up the stairs at home, you carry me across the street, you carry me everywhere! Everyone looks at me like I’m a baby!"
Ronan stood frozen, towering over the boy, feeling smaller than he had in twenty years.
He knew Eli was right. The boy lived under a gilded dome of hyper-protection. In the Vale penthouse on Lake Shore Drive, there were soft carpets, custom railings, and private doctors who monitored every millimeter of skin graft. Outside the penthouse, there were armored Suburbans, armed drivers, and Marco’s relentless perimeter security. But in Ronan’s mind, every precaution was necessary. He had failed to protect his wife when the bomb went off; he would be damned to hell before he let a single scratch touch the boy who had survived it.
Yet looking at Eli’s trembling lower lip—quivering not from sorrow, but from the unbearable humiliation of being lifted—Ronan realized the invisible damage he was inflicting. By shielding his son from every fall, he was robbing him of the ground beneath his feet.
"Alright," Ronan conceded in a low murmur, stepping back two paces onto dry pavement, though every muscle in his thighs remained coiled to lunge. "Show me."
Eli took a deep breath. He set his shoulders, shifted his weight to his right side, and carefully advanced his left prosthetic foot toward the edge of the slick, muddy mire.
The carbon foot planted on the wet surface. Instantly, the thin layer of decomposing leaves and wet clay acted like ball bearings beneath the vulcanized sole. The foot kicked sideways with a sickening squelch.
Eli gasped, his torso lurching violently to the left. He swung his arms wildly, his little green backpack shifting, throwing his balance further off-center. His right knee buckled as he tried to overcompensate, his heel sinking into three inches of dark, watery mud.
"Eli!" Ronan stepped forward, his coat whipping open, hands already lunging.
"I said stop!" Eli cried out, his voice cracking with tears of sheer frustration as he dragged his right foot back out of the mire, leaving his khaki pant leg splattered with foul-smelling gray sludge. He stood wobbling on the narrow lip of dry asphalt, breathing heavily, staring at the five-foot stretch of slick mud as if it were an impassable canyon.
Behind them, Marco took two slow, cautious steps closer, his gaze flicking between the boy and the surrounding path, sensing the emotional storm brewing between father and son.
Eli hung his head. A single, furious tear broke over his eyelashes and rolled down his rosy cheek. He wiped it away furiously with the sleeve of his cream sweater. The realization was setting in: his carbon blades simply could not get traction on this surface. He couldn't jump it. He couldn't power through it. The only way past was to be lifted and carried across like an invalid—in front of the joggers, in front of the people sitting on the benches, in front of his father.
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Ronan felt his own throat constrict. He hated the mud. He hated the park district for not clearing the path. He hated the world that had stolen his son’s flesh and bone. He reached into his coat pocket, about to pull his phone to call an entire team to pave the goddamn path right in front of them, when the sound of approaching footsteps broke the heavy silence.
From the grassy knoll bordering the pond, a small figure came jogging down toward the walkway.
