Chapter 2: The Color Leaves His Face
My father didn't say a word.
He didn't have to.
He stepped into the room, and the air changed.
Julian's hand slowly released my arm.
"Who are you?" Julian said, trying to sound steady.
My father looked at him the way a man looks at something small and dangerous — not with fear, but with patience.
"I'm her father."
Julian straightened.
"This is a family matter.
It doesn't involve you."
"She is my family." My father's voice was quiet.
Absolute.
"And your hand was on her arm."
Julian laughed — that short, dismissive laugh I had heard a thousand times.
"She's my wife.
I can take her home whenever I want."
My father walked to the side of my bed.
He looked at my casts.
At the monitor.
At the stitches above my ear.
He took it all in without a word, and something in his expression shifted.
Then he turned back to Julian.
"She has two broken legs, three fractured ribs, and a head wound.
And you drove here to pull her out of bed."
Julian opened his mouth.
"Don't." My father's voice dropped.
"I spent thirty years making sure people like you never got a second chance."
The room went completely still.
Then Julian's phone buzzed.
He glanced at the screen — and for the first time that afternoon, I watched the color drain from his face.
---
What was on that phone — and what does Audrey's father already know?
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