Chapter 3
I called Marcus into the room.
He walked in without the family pin he normally wore.
One of my guards had removed it.
Good.
I kept Lucy with me.
Marcus noticed.
“You want her here for this?”
I looked at him.
“She already lived through it.”
His jaw tightened.
Fair point, apparently.
I placed Emma’s phone on the table.
“You told her I knew.”
Marcus looked at Emma.
Wrong instinct.
I leaned forward.
“Look at me.”
He did.
“Why?”
He swallowed.
“Bianca said you did.”
I almost laughed.
“You’ve known me twelve years.”
“I know.”
“You believed I wanted my three-year-old daughter eating from a dog bowl.”
“No.”
“Then why repeat it?”
Silence.
The answer came slowly.
“Because it was easier.”
There.
Truth.
Ugly.
Useful.
“Easier than what?”
“Standing against Bianca.”
I leaned back.
Marcus continued.
“She said Lucy needed discipline because everyone spoiled her after Sofia died.”
My chest tightened.
Lucy’s mother.
Dead eighteen months.
Another wound Bianca had entered through.
“She used Sofia?”
Marcus looked ashamed.
“She said you were too soft with Lucy because you felt guilty.”
I stared.
“And you agreed?”
“No.”
“Then what did you do?”
He looked at the floor.
“Nothing.”
Exactly.
Sometimes complicity looks like laughter.
Sometimes a closed door.
Sometimes nothing.
Lucy moved on my lap.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Who’s Sofia?”
My heart stopped.
I looked at her.
She had been two when her mother died.
Young enough for memory to become fragments.
“Your mommy.”
Lucy nodded.
Then looked at Marcus.
“Why did Bianca talk about my mommy?”
Marcus had no answer.
I did.
“Because she wanted to make something cruel sound reasonable.”
Lucy frowned.
Three-year-olds do not understand emotional manipulation.
Good.
They should not have to.
I looked back at Marcus.
“What else did Bianca make reasonable?”
His face changed.
There was more.
May you like
Again.
Always more.
