Salvar looked at Xavier for a long moment, his mind still half in the hotel room.
Back there, after receiving the call, Silas had walked out to the balcony without a word. When he came back, his face was hard, his jaw tight, frustration rolling off him in waves. He did not look at Salvar. Not once.
He simply gathered his things and left, the door clicking shut behind him with a cold finality that Salvar felt in his chest. Salvar was not expecting affection. He was not expecting soft words or lingering glances. But some basic decency would have been nice.
Now Xavier was standing in his doorway, head lowered, asking for a place to hide from the very man who had walked out of that hotel room like Salvar did not exist. Whatever frustration Silas had carried home with him, it had spilled over onto his son. Salvar could see it in the way Xavier's shoulders curled inward, in the way he could not quite lift his eyes from the floor.
