Chapter 2
I had never seen my father look at anyone the way he looked at Vanessa that afternoon.
He wasn't shouting anymore.
He wasn't asking questions.
He was simply watching her, as if he were trying to recognize a person he had lived beside for seven years.
Vanessa straightened her navy suit.
“Marcus, you're embarrassing yourself.”
He didn't respond.
Instead, he handed the invitation to his assistant, who had hurried out of the executive hallway.
“Get me the original file for this invitation. Find out whether anyone has accessed my office records today.”
His assistant nodded and disappeared.
Then my father turned to me.
“Come upstairs with me.”
I hesitated.
I wanted to go with him.
I had imagined this moment a thousand times.
But I couldn't stop looking at Vanessa.
She stood near the elevators with her arms folded, her expression composed again.
As I passed her, she leaned toward me.
“You have no idea what you're getting yourself into.”
I stopped.
My father immediately turned around.
“What did you say to her?”
“Nothing.”
I looked at him.
“She said the same thing when I came in.”
Vanessa laughed sharply.
“This is ridiculous. You're going to believe a nineteen-year-old girl over your wife?”
My father's face hardened.
“When that nineteen-year-old girl is my daughter, yes.”
He placed a protective hand on my shoulder and guided me into the elevator.
The doors closed before Vanessa could respond.
I stood beside him, staring at the crumpled invitation.
My arms still hurt where the guards had held me.
He noticed me rubbing my wrists.
“Are you hurt?”
“Not really.”
“Nia.”
I looked up.
He was waiting for the truth.
“My arms hurt a little.”
His jaw tightened.
“I'm sorry.”
Those two words nearly undid me.
My father had apologized to me before, but never like that.
Not with his eyes shining.
Not as though he believed he had failed me.
“Why didn't you tell me she treated you this way?” he asked.
I laughed bitterly.
“I did.”
He went still.
“When?”
“Last Christmas. When she told everyone I wasn't welcome at your house anymore.”
He stared at me.
“I told you she said it because I was staying with Grandma too much.”
His expression crumbled.
I remembered that night perfectly.
I had called him from my grandmother's kitchen, crying so hard I could barely finish a sentence.
He had promised to talk to Vanessa.
The next day, Vanessa called me herself.
She told me my father was under enormous pressure and that I was selfish for making his life harder.
I never brought it up again.
“You said you would handle it,” I whispered. “Then you stopped answering my calls.”
My father looked down.
“I thought you were angry with me.”
“I was.”
The elevator doors opened onto the executive floor.
He didn't move.
“I deserved that,” he said.
For the first time, I saw how much he had missed.
Not just my graduation preparations.
Not just my calls.
My entire life had continued while he believed everything was fine.
When we entered his office, he closed the door and offered me a seat.
I remained standing.
“Dad, what was that message?”
He took the invitation from the assistant, who had followed us upstairs.
The handwriting had been photographed and enlarged.
My father studied it.
“It's your mother's.”
My breath caught.
My mother had died when I was eleven.
I still remembered her handwriting on birthday cards and notes she used to leave beside my breakfast.
She always wrote my name with a little heart above the final letter.
The message on the invitation had the same small heart.
“That's impossible,” I whispered.
My father sat down heavily.
“Your mother left something for you before she died.”
“What?”
“A letter. She told me to give it to you when you turned eighteen.”
I stared at him.
“I'm nineteen.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn't you give it to me?”
He closed his eyes.
“Because I couldn't find it.”
I felt a cold emptiness spread through my chest.
“What do you mean, you couldn't find it?”
“It was in my study at home. In a locked drawer. The last time I checked, the envelope was there. Then, a few months after I married Vanessa, it disappeared.”
I thought of every birthday I had spent waiting for him to mention my mother.
Every time I had asked whether she had left me anything.
He had always told me we would talk about it later.
I had believed him.
“Did you ask Vanessa?”
“Yes.”
“And what did she say?”
“She told me she had never seen it.”
The office door opened.
My father's assistant stepped inside carrying a folder.
“We found something.”
She placed it on the desk.
Inside were copies of emails from an unfamiliar account.
The most recent message had been sent that morning.
Its subject line read: NIA MUST NOT ATTEND THE COMMENCEMENT.
My father opened it.
The email claimed that I had been threatening to expose private family information at his graduation ceremony.
It also instructed his assistant to keep me away from him.
The message had been sent using an account linked to Vanessa's personal phone.
She had been planning to keep us apart.
But that wasn't the worst part.
The assistant turned to another page.
“There are several similar emails dating back almost three years.”
I stared at the dates.
Three years.
That was when my father had stopped attending my school events.
When my birthday calls became shorter.
When I had started believing that perhaps I was no longer important to him.
My father looked physically sick.
“Who sent these?”
His assistant hesitated.
“The account was created under Mrs. Carter's name.”
I felt tears gathering again.
My father reached for my hand.
“I need you to know something. I never told anyone to keep you away from me.”
I wanted to believe him.
I really did.
But I had spent three years learning how to live without expecting him to show up.
“Then why didn't you notice?” I whispered.
He had no answer.
A knock sounded at the door.
Before anyone could respond, Vanessa walked inside.
She had abandoned the smile she wore in the lobby.
Her eyes went straight to the folder.
“You shouldn't be looking at those.”
My father stood.
“Explain yourself.”
Vanessa glanced at me.
Then she looked at the office door.
For one second, I thought she might confess.
Instead, she pointed at me.
“Your daughter has been manipulating you for years.”
I recoiled.
My father stepped between us.
“Get out.”
Vanessa's eyes widened.
“Marcus—”
“Get out of my office.”
She turned toward me, her face twisted with hatred.
“You have no idea what your mother did before she died.”
I froze.
My father went completely still.
“What did you say?”
Vanessa's expression changed.
She had revealed something she hadn't meant to say.
May you like
And as she backed toward the door, she whispered the words that would haunt me for the rest of the day.
“Ask him why your mother was really afraid to leave you alone with this family.”
