Chương 2
Robert reached for the SUV door and held it open.
“Come on.”
This time, his voice was different.
Not an order.
A request.
Gaby hesitated.
Then she walked toward him.
Every step looked heavier than it should have.
When she reached the vehicle, she stopped.
Her hand rested on the door frame.
She did not get inside.
“Dad.”
“What?”
She swallowed.
“I need you to know something before we go anywhere.”
Robert waited.
“Derek and his mother took everything from me.”
The sentence was simple.
Almost too simple.
Robert looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
Gaby stared through the open door.
The inside of the SUV was clean.
Perfectly clean.
The same way his office was always clean.
The same way his life looked from the outside.
“They took my bank account.”
Robert frowned.
“What?”
“They said it was easier if Derek handled the money.”
A muscle moved near his cheek.
“Gaby.”
“He said I was bad with finances.”
Her voice became quieter.
“He said I spent too much.”
Robert looked at the plastic cup.
The few coins inside.
The worn boots.
The baby sleeping against her shoulder.
Something cold moved through his chest.
“Where is Derek now?”
She looked away.
“I don’t know.”
The answer bothered him more than anger would have.
“How do you not know?”
Because there it was.
The businessman in him.
The part that wanted facts arranged in order.
Dates.
Names.
Evidence.
A timeline.
Gaby flinched.
Robert saw it.
Immediately.
He hated that he saw it too late.
“I’m sorry.”
The apology came quickly.
She looked back at him.
He rarely apologized quickly.
That alone told her how serious he was.
“I’m just trying to understand.”
“I know.”
She rubbed her thumb against the edge of the cup.
“I know you are.”
The words were gentle.
That made them worse.
A man walking past glanced at them, then quickly looked away.
Robert noticed.
His daughter noticed too.
She lowered her head.
“I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
“Why?”
She gave a small, tired laugh.
“Because you always believed I could do anything.”
Robert did not answer.
Because that was true.
He had bragged about her.
At business dinners.
At family gatherings.
His daughter was smart.
His daughter was strong.
His daughter was going to be successful.
Somewhere along the way, he had confused believing in her with paying attention to her.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
Gaby looked at him.
The sentence seemed to surprise her.
Not because she had never wanted to hear it.
Because she had stopped expecting it.
Robert reached out slowly.
He did not touch her yet.
He waited.
After a moment, she placed her hand in his.
Her fingers felt colder than he expected.
And lighter.
Too light.
He looked at his daughter standing beside him, holding her child, trying to carry a life that had already become too heavy.
The anger came.
But underneath it was something more difficult.
Fear.
Because anger could be controlled.
Fear meant admitting something had already been lost.
“Get in the car,” he said again.
This time, Gaby nodded.
She climbed inside slowly.
Robert closed the door halfway, careful not to wake Leo.
For a moment, he stood beside the vehicle and watched the street.
The same street he had crossed thousands of times.
The same city where he had built a life.
The same world where his daughter had been suffering without him knowing.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
He looked down.
A business reminder.
A meeting he had scheduled weeks ago.
A problem waiting for him.
He turned the screen off.
For the first time in years, Robert ignored something important.
Because something more important was sitting behind him.
And he was finally ready to find out what had happened to his daughter.
The first thing Robert did after pulling away from the curb was turn down the radio.
He did it without thinking.
Gaby noticed.
She had spent enough years around him to recognize the small movements that meant something was wrong.
Robert did not slam doors when he was angry.
He did not raise his voice.
He became quieter.
The quieter he became, the more serious the situation usually was.
Leo slept in the back seat, his tiny hand curled against the fabric of the worn blanket Gaby had wrapped around him.
Robert checked the rearview mirror every few seconds.
Each time, he saw his grandson.
Each time, he saw a different version of the same question.
How had this happened?
The answer was sitting beside him.
But every time he looked at Gaby, he saw the hesitation in her face.
Like she was still deciding whether telling him the truth was safer than keeping it hidden.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“My house.”
Her shoulders tightened.
“No.”
Robert glanced at her.
“No?”
“I can’t go there.”
“Why?”
She looked out the window.
The buildings moved past them in reflections across the glass.
“Because Derek knows where you live.”
Robert’s hands tightened around the steering wheel.
“He knows where I live because he has been there.”
“That was before.”
“What changed?”
Gaby did not answer immediately.
The silence lasted long enough that Robert almost asked again.
Then she said, “Everything.”
He waited.
She pressed her lips together.
“Derek started getting angry when I talked to people.”
Robert frowned.
“People?”
“My friends.”
“You still have friends?”
The question came out wrong.
He knew it as soon as he said it.
Gaby looked down.
“No.”
Robert felt the weight of that single word.
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged.
“I stopped answering messages.”
“Because he told you not to?”
“Sometimes.”
“And other times?”
She looked at him.
“Because I was embarrassed.”
That answer stayed between them.
Robert had expected anger.
He had expected accusations.
He had expected a story where someone else was clearly the villain and his daughter was clearly the victim.
May you like
He was not prepared for the parts where she blamed herself.
“I thought everyone would know something was wrong,” she said.
