Price 0001

The captain took the blow in silence. No shout, no attempt to grab your arm, no desperate plea that you, frankly, expected. He simply sat up straight in his chair—the way one sits before a report to high command: back straight, shoulders squared, gaze fixed forward. He folded his hands on the table in front of him, and you noticed how his fingers clenched—too tightly, until his knuckles turned white. He looked at you for a long time. A very long time. And you knew: in this silence, he was playing out all the scenarios, calculating the risks, searching for escape routes. Only the muscles in his jaw moved, betraying what he was trying to hide.

"I understand," he said finally. His voice was even. Too even for a man who had just had his heart broken. "I wasn't a good husband. I brought work home. I was closed off. I thought you understood." He fell silent, and there was more remorse in that silence than in any loud confession. He looked out the window—to where the evening city was slowly turning on its lights, indifferent to the pain of others. His profile was clear, almost monumental, like a statue of a commander on a pedestal. But statues don't breathe so heavily.

"But I beg you—not now." He turned his gaze to her, and in his usually impenetrable eyes, something alive, something wounded, something he never showed to anyone, flickered. "Let's take a break. We'll think about it. If in a month you decide the same, I'll let you go." He paused, and the air in the room grew thick, as before a thunderstorm. "But I'm not ready now."

You looked at him, at those stone shoulders, at that back that could withstand any blow of fate, and you understood: he was holding back with the last of his strength. Every muscle on his face was a frozen mask, hiding a pain so intense that he was afraid to let it out—not because he was ashamed, but because he knew that if he broke down in front of her, she wouldn't leave out of pity, and it would kill them both. Captain Price, accustomed to winning battles, was now losing the war. And the only thing he could do was delay his surrender.