Simon remained beside the table, thinking about Lilith's words.
He didn't like what she had done. But after setting that aside, he couldn't deny that she had a point.
His friends had fought beside him for decades. His wife had shared his life. He had trusted them so completely that, when they turned against him, he hadn't been prepared.
Then he had made the same mistake with his mother.
He remembered how thin she had become while feeding him. How she had worked to keep them alive. He had seen all of that and believed there was no possibility of her ever betraying him.
Yet she had sold him.
His jaw tightened before he forced it to relax.
The problem wasn't that he had cared about them. It was that he had never considered what he would do if they stopped caring about him.
Now he expected betrayal from almost everyone.
