My hand drifted to the scar on my neck.
Daniel noticed and nodded toward it. “Remember how I always told you that you got the scar saving someone?”
I nodded.
“You did. You saved me that night.” He drew in a breath. “The fighting between your mom and my dad got bad fast.Real bad. He was obsessed. Jealous beyond anything that made sense. Sometimes he locked her in the house just to keep her away from other men. No one was allowed to look at her. He always thought she was cheating. Accused her every day. We used to hear her sob through the walls. We’d hide in closets together, holding hands, praying it would stop.”
“I think I remember that, us hiding in my closet. They were yelling in the hallway. Horrible things.”
He nodded. “That really happened. But none of it was her fault. She never did anything wrong. He broke her nose that day. That’s why she was screaming.”
“What?”
“Yes. A few weeks after the fighting started, he turned violent. Not just verbally. He mostly targeted her. We stayed out of his way, were invisible if we could help it. But it was a terrible time for all of us. Hudson tried his best to help, but his hands were tied. My father was a powerful man. And now, looking back as an adult, I know that people knew what he was doing. No one cared. Not when tens of millions were being made through his businesses. Not when it came to the local economy and politics.”
I shook my head slowly. “Why can’t I remember all that?”
“Most likely because of what happened shortly after.”
Our eyes locked across the space between us.
“About a month after he broke Cynthia’s nose, they got into another bad fight. Worse than the rest. She packed a bag and said she was taking you and leaving. He beat her again. Worse this time. Threatened to kill all of us. I was so scared he’d actually do it that I typed a letter to the police on the typewriter in his office. Told them he was a bad man. That he hurt us. That he might kill us. I even stole a stamp from his desk and mailed it. But the police returned it to him. They didn’t help us.”
Silence fell, deeper than before. Cynthia’s voice echoed in my head—how she refused to call the police. The distrust. It made perfect sense now.
“There was a storm raging outside when he confronted us about it,” Daniel continued. “He’d sent the staff to the mainland earlier that day. Even Hudson. He wanted the house empty. The letter sounded like a child had written it, so he went to you first. In the library.”
Daniel’s grip tightened around my hand. It was like the memory had clawed its way out of the dark.
“And you protected me,” he said quietly. “Took the blame. Like you always did.”
A single tear traced a slow line down his cheek.
“Nobody ever loved me the way you did, Emily.”
My chest ached. Not just for him. For all of it.
“I think...I think you remember some of it now. At least what came next.”
His gaze drifted to the floor, then came back up. His eyes looked haunted.
“He dragged you across the hardwood floor, and one of the nails tore you open. From your neck to your collarbone. I bit his leg to stop him, but he threw me off like I was nothing. That’s when your mom came out of nowhere. We hadn’t seen her in days. She looked awful. Badly beaten. Her face was bruised and swollen. But she had a gun. And she shot him.”
“She killed him?”
He nodded. “But he didn’t die from the first shot. He got back up. Grabbed her. You and I ran, just like she told us to. I went upstairs thinking you were right behind me. I hid under the bed. I didn’t realize you went out into the storm. Not until it was too late.”
His voice dipped lower. “There were two more shots, then silence. I ran back down to the library, thinking my dad had shotCynthia. That he’d shot you too. But against all odds, she was still standing. She’d ended the monster’s life once and for all.”
A long breath escaped him. “It’s the craziest thing, but I cried when I saw him dead. Even after everything he did to us, I still cried for him.”
“He was still your dad. Monster or not.”
Daniel didn’t respond, not directly. He just stared at the floor like he wanted to erase what he saw in his mind.
“When your mom and I ran outside to find you, we were sure you were dead. That the ocean had taken you. No one could’ve made it through waves like that. They were too violent, too unforgiving. Your mom had to hold me back so that I wouldn’t run into the storm after you. I didn’t care. I just wanted to be with you. Even in the waves.”
I looked out the window. The wind had died completely. The world looked peaceful again, quiet, as if everything had returned to normal.
