Chapter 6
My father refused to leave the west wing.
He said no son of his would exile him inside his own home.
I told him it was no longer his home to rule.
That sentence cost me something.
Not guilt.
A final thread.
He had been cruel all my life, but sons are foolish creatures.
Some part of me had still waited for him to become a father.
Lily killed that illusion without trying.
Not because she asked me to choose.
Because she should never have been in danger while I waited.
Daniel filed for a protective order the next morning.
My father’s lawyers responded within hours.
They claimed I was grieving.
Unstable.
Manipulated by staff.
Unfit to manage the estate.
There it was.
The plan.
Celeste had shoved Lily so they could provoke me.
If I had struck her, screamed, lost control, they would have used it.
My father had expected the old Adrian.
The one trained to bleed quietly.
He did not expect the father Lily had made me.
The emergency hearing was set for Friday.
Until then, the judge ordered my father to stay away from Lily.
He laughed when he heard it.
Then Marcus blocked the hallway.
My father looked at him with pure hatred.
“You carried Adrian when he was a boy.”
Marcus did not move.
“I did.”
“You owe me.”
“I owe him better than we gave him.”
My father’s face changed.
That hit him.
Good.
Lily spent the next days close to me.
Too close.
If I left the room, she panicked.
If a door slammed, she hid.
I canceled every meeting.
The company could burn for all I cared.
On Thursday night, she crawled into my lap in the library.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Did Grandpa not love me because Mommy died?”
I closed my eyes.
“No. Your grandfather’s heart is sick in a way love cannot fix.”
“Was Mommy mad at me?”
I pulled her against me.
“Never. Your mommy loved you before she saw your face.”
Lily touched my cheek.
“Do you miss her?”
“Every minute.”
“Me too,” she whispered.
She had been a baby when Emma died.
May you like
But grief does not always need memories.
Sometimes it lives in empty spaces.
