Chapter 64

Chapter 64
KAT’S POV

The moment the office door swings open, the air shifts. It’s not the casual kind of interruption that happens when someone forgets to knock. It sounds deliberate.

I look up, expecting another assistant or maybe someone from PR coming to panic over trending hashtags. Instead, my breath catches.

My father stands in the doorway.

Mr. Ford. The man whose presence can silence an entire company. The man who rarely appears without scheduling a week ahead. His expression is stern, carved from stone, but his eyes… they look tired. He looks a bit older than the last time I saw him.

Alex immediately stands. She bows her head respectfully. “Good afternoon, Mr. Ford.”

He nods once. “Alex, please give us the room.”

She gives me a quick, worried glance before slipping out, squeezing my shoulder as she passes, as if she can already sense something is wrong.

The door clicks shut behind her. The room falls silent.

I stand slowly. “Dad,” I breathe, stepping into him.

I wrap my arms around him because I haven’t seen him in weeks and even though our relationship isn’t perfect—he’s still my father. Still the man who once carried me when I was too afraid to walk into school. He holds me for a brief moment, stiff at first, then warmer, almost relieved.

I pull back and smile softly. “I didn’t even know you were in the country.”

“I landed two hours ago,” he says, lowering himself into the chair across from the couch. He sinks into it heavily, like gravity is pulling harder on him than it should. That alone kills my smile. My father never looks tired. Never looks anything but in control.

Something is wrong. I can feel it.

My stomach tightens. “Dad… what’s going on?”

He rubs his forehead, choosing his words carefully, too carefully. My pulse starts pounding in my ears. Something is wrong. Something big. He looks at me, and there’s a crack in his composure I’ve never seen before. Fear.

“Katherine,” he says. “I flew in to tell you this myself.”

My heart drops into my stomach.

“Tell me what?” I whisper.

He inhales, and I can see his jaw trembling slightly. When he finally speaks, the world tilts.

“Gareth has been released from prison.” He says.

For a second, I don’t understand the sentence. It doesn’t process. It hangs in the air like smoke for a while. It feels like my brain doesn’t want to understand what he just said. My lips part. My body goes cold. The office blurs around the edges. I feel the walls bending, the ground tilting.

“No…” I choke out, shaking my head. “No. No, Dad, no - he can’t - he can’t be -”

“He served his time,” my father says quietly. “They let him out a bit early due to good behaviour. He-”

“NO!” The word shatters out of me.

My legs fail. I drop to the floor so fast the impact barely registers. My hands claw at the carpet as the room spins violently. My chest tightens like a fist crushing my ribs. A violent wave of nausea hits me, forcing bile up my throat. My breath comes in short, sharp, broken gasps.

I feel like throwing up. No…worse. I feel like fucking dying.

No…just no..

Gareth.

The name itself feels like a hand closing around my neck.

Suddenly I’m not in my office. I’m back in that locked room.

I catch the smell of old sweat. The darkness. The sound of his breathing behind me. His shadow stretching across the floor. His whisper against my ear: If you scream, I’ll make it worse. His fingers gripping my wrist. His voice telling me I belong to him. The threats. The games. The nights I curled into myself and prayed morning wouldn’t come.

“He’s out,” I whisper, voice breaking. “He’s out. He’s out—”

My father rushes to me, catching me before I collapse fully. He kneels and wraps his arms around me tightly, holding me against him like he used to when I was small. But that only makes it worse because I feel like that child again - helpless, terrified, ruined.

A scream tears out of me. It rips up my throat before I can stop it. My father flinches but holds me tighter. I scream again. And again. My whole body shakes. I can feel my limbs trembling uncontrollably.

“You’re safe,” he whispers into my hair. “Katherine, sweetheart, you’re safe. I’m here. I’m here. He’ll never come near you again.”

But I can’t hear him.

All I can hear is Gareth as they dragged him away years ago, turning back to smile at me with those cold dead eyes of his.

I’ll always find you, Kat.
And when I do… you’ll play with me again.

My mind fractures with flashbacks - his hands pinning me down, the cold floor against my skin, the sound of his laughter, the metallic click of the lock behind him, the nightmares I thought I buried, the nights I slept with the lights on for years because darkness reminded me of his breath on my neck.

I claw at my father’s shirt, trying to pull air into my lungs, but none comes. My chest convulses. My vision blurs completely. My body curls inward, like I’m trying to disappear into the floor.

My father rocks me gently, whispering my name over and over, but his voice feels a thousand miles away.

Because Gareth is out.

He’s free.

And the nightmare I spent my whole life trying to escape…

is walking again.