My breath caught.
“Could have woken her and ended it.”
He shook his head slowly.
“Instead... I put the phone back.”
His voice cracked. “Went to my study. Sat in the dark. And sobbed.”
The word sounded alien coming from him.
“Like a child. For a second — just a second — the monster disappeared. All that remained was a wounded man.”
He looked at me again.
This time not with rage.
But with betrayal.
“I never told her I knew.”
His expression hardened once more.
His fingers tightened around the baton.
He stood over me, chest rising and falling violently.
Harris stood apart from them — arms folded, expression unreadable — watching the scene with cool detachment, like a man observing a calculated execution rather than a father confronting betrayal.
“I kept pretending,” Vasquez continued after a long silence.
His voice dropped lower now, almost hoarse. “Acted like nothing had changed. Smiled at breakfast. Kissed her goodbye when she packed for Poland. Sat across from her at dinner and listened to her lie straight to my face.”
His jaw tightened.
“But inside... I was rotting.”
He dragged a hand through his hair, pacing slowly around me as if reliving every memory.
“She didn’t notice the distance I forced between us. Didn’t question why I stopped touching her the same way. Didn’t ask why I stopped looking at her like she was mine.”
His lips twisted.
“How long had she been lying? How many times had Andrew been in our city... in our house... in our bed?”
The words exploded from him like poison.
“I endured it for weeks. Every laugh she gave the children. Every casual touch on my arm like we were still normal. I let it sit inside me — festering — until three days before her flight.”
He stopped walking.
His eyes darkened.
“I took hair samples.”
The room went quieter.
“Quietly. From you. From your sister. From your little brother.”
