Chapter 308: His Achilles Heel
Micah stood in front of Clyde, his chest rising and falling unevenly. His eyes were moist, the sheen of unshed tears making them brighter, sharper, a mirror of his heartbreak and fury colliding at the same time. His fists clenched at his sides, nails digging into his palms.
Thousands of questions roared inside his skull, nearly drowning out the sound of his own breathing. Why didn’t anyone step in? Where was your mother? Your siblings? Why didn’t you run? Why didn’t you call for help? Why...why would your father do this to you?
But knowing the answers felt useless. Even if he knew...would it change anything now? It had been more than ten years. And the man...the predator was already gone from this world. Asking would do nothing except tear open a wound Clyde had fought to keep bound shut. It wouldn’t help Clyde at all.
And Micah knew Clyde. He knew how tightly the man guarded certain parts of himself, how carefully he kept some truth hidden. He could see it in his posture now, the faint stiffness, the way his gaze was fixed just past Micah’s shoulder instead of on him, as if eye contact might force more confession than he was willing to give.
No. Clyde didn’t need to be interrogated like a suspect. He didn’t need pity packaged in pretty words, and he certainly didn’t need anyone probing at his scars like they were some puzzle to be solved. Micah could see it clearly as daylight...this was Clyde’s Achilles heel.
He had never seen Clyde like this before. He had always been the epitome of perfection, every inch of him controlled, deliberate, untouchable. The perfect gentleman. The perfect patriarch. The perfect man in conduct and manners.
Micah couldn’t find any flaws in him. Sure, he called him a jerk. Sure, they bickered endlessly and annoyed each other to no end. But that was just... them. That wasn’t Clyde being less.
Micah had never thought much about why the Du Pont Patriarch avoided public appearances or kept his personal life sealed away like a classified file. Maybe it was just his style, his preference. But standing here now, staring at the marks on his back...Micah understood. Maybe there had been a reason so awful he wouldn’t have dared imagine it, let alone ask about it.
His throat felt tight, his breath shaky as he took a small step forward. His eyes didn’t waver from Clyde’s face, even though Clyde wasn’t meeting them. "I’m sorry..." His voice was low, rough, carrying weight he didn’t know how to put into words.
Before Clyde could react, Micah’s arms were already around him, pulling him into a sudden, fierce hug. His cheek pressed against the side of Clyde’s neck, and for a moment, Micah shut his eyes as if that would keep his emotions from spilling over.
"I’m sorry you had to go through that..." he whispered. "I never thought..." he swallowed hard, forcing the lump in his throat down. "You are not alone anymore. You’ve got me. And if anyone so much as looks at you wrong, you tell me. I’ll make them regret it, make sure they never even think about touching you again. I’m tougher than I look, you know."
Clyde didn’t move at first. His body was still, but then, slowly, his arms came up to return the embrace. His palm pressed into Micah’s back, tentative at first, then firmer.
Clyde’s heart thudded violently in his chest. He had never shown those scars to anyone. Not Dean. Not his family. Not even his friends after that day they found him... They were a brand he had carried in silence, proof of the ugliness he had come from, a mark of the punishment he had endured simply for existing as the child of a broken relationship.
But Micah... he was always different. His reaction didn’t make him flawed. No. It made him vulnerable, as if it were the most natural thing that he needed protection.
There was no disgust in his eyes, no quiet judgment dressed up as sympathy. Instead, there was anger. Anger on his behalf. Anger without even knowing the reasons behind it. Clyde didn’t understand why that would matter so much, but somehow... it did.
Clyde closed his eyes. "I was supposed to be the one to have your back..." he murmured near Micah’s ear, his voice pitched low enough that it was almost an afterthought. "But why don’t I dislike it when you say that?"
Micah’s fingers, restless and careful at once, brushed lightly over the ridges of the scars again. He didn’t look down at them. No, he looked straight ahead, his brows drawn, his lips pressed tight.
Clyde had leaned into him now, bending slightly so his forehead rested against Micah’s shoulder, and Micah felt every bit of that subtle weight.
God, if he could just turn back time and find that man, the one who had dared call himself Clyde’s father, he would drive his knee straight into his gut, again and again, until the bastard couldn’t stand. How could someone look at this great man and see something worth breaking?
How much had Clyde craved warmth all these years? How much had he wanted to be loved, and been denied it because of that man? Micah didn’t even need to see him to hate him with every fibre of his being. Clyde’s words...
Never being loved and never being in love...
He knew what that meant now.
His Clyde...
Yes, somewhere in the back of his mind, he had already claimed him. He should always be standing tall, his chin lifted, his presence commanding room, making people envy him. Not leaning on someone like him for comfort. Not relying on a brat who was still wet behind the ears, still dragging his own baggage like a train of rattling cars.
Because Micah was broken, too. How was he supposed to heal another person?
But still...
At least Micah had been lucky enough to have a family who cared for him, even if he was a failure in people’s eyes. And according to the novel, his family didn’t abandon him at first either after the truth was revealed. It was his own doing that made them disappointed again and again.
Clyde, though... From what Micah had seen in just the last two days, Clyde had no one. His house was beautiful, grand, perfect in its every line, and empty. Even his niece and nephews were not close to him. He saw it. They respected him, yes, but there was something else in their eyes when they looked at him. A sliver of fear. A distance that spoke louder than words. Not the fond affection children should have for an uncle.
And... Clyde didn’t close that distance either. Micah had noticed the way he kept everyone at arm’s length, never letting them get close enough to touch what was real.
Two days had been enough for Micah to understand that there was an invisible wall around Clyde, one so solid that no one even tried to break it anymore.
Micah exhaled slowly, letting his head rest in the curve of Clyde’s neck. His arms tightened just slightly.
None of the rest mattered. Not the walls Clyde had built, not the distance he kept from everyone else.
Clyde was his.
And for Clyde, he would rewrite his ending.
He couldn’t die.