Chapter 75 The ghost in the glass
The black sedan had long since vanished, but the smell of Marcus Blackwood’s expensive, woody cologne lingered in our small living room like a stain. I stood by the dining table, my hand hovering over the opulent gift basket. The crystal jars of honey and imported fruits looked like alien objects in our house—offerings from a king to a peasant, or perhaps, as my father’s reaction suggested, a bribe from a murderer to a witness.
I fled to my bedroom, the walls suddenly feeling too thin, the ceiling too low. I needed a voice. I needed the one person who claimed to be my future to explain the wreckage of my past.
I grabbed my phone and dialed Victor’s international number. My heart was a frantic drum against my ribs. Pick up, Victor. Please, just pick up. It rang and rang, the hollow, rhythmic chirping of the overseas line mocking me. I tried three more times, the desperation rising in my throat until it felt like I was choking. No answer. Only the cold, digital silence of a voicemail box that I couldn't bring myself to leave a message in.
What was the fire, Victor? What did your father do in that town?
The questions remained trapped in my chest. If Victor didn't know, then asking him would only ignite a war he wasn't physically ready to fight. If he did know... I couldn't finish that thought.
I tossed the phone onto the bed and walked toward my parents' room. I needed to see my father. I needed to look into his eyes and demand the truth, even if the truth broke us both. But when I pushed the door open, the room was empty. The bed was made with its usual military precision, the scent of his old-fashioned shaving cream hanging in the air, but the man was gone.
"Dad?" I called out, moving toward the kitchen. "Dad, are you in the yard?"
I checked the small vegetable patch, the shed where he kept his tools, and even the narrow alleyway behind the house. Nothing. The silence of the yard was punctuated only by the distant barking of a dog and the low hum of a neighbor’s lawnmower.
Panic, cold and sharp, began to settle in my gut. My father hadn't been a drinking man for years—not since the "dark times" when I was a child, the years he spent trying to drown a sorrow I never understood. He had fought his way back to sobriety with a grim, silent determination that became the backbone of our family.
I walked to the front gate, my eyes scanning the street. Mrs. Jones, our neighbor from three houses down, was watering her rosebushes, her wide sunhat bobbing as she worked.
"Mrs. Jones" I shouted, waving my hand.
She turned, squinting against the afternoon glare. "Elena? Is everything alright, child? You look like you’ve seen a spirit."
"I’m looking for my father," I said, reaching the edge of her fence, my breath coming in short, jagged bursts. "Did you see him go out?"
Mrs. Jones wiped her forehead with a handkerchief, her expression softening into a look of pity that made my stomach turn. "I did, Elena. About twenty minutes ago. A car pulled up—that old, rusted blue sedan. You know the one."
My heart sank. "John?"
"Yes, John," she sighed, shaking her head. "They didn't say much. Your father looked... he looked different, Elena. He looked like a man who had given up on the day. They drove off toward the tavern on the main road."
"Thank you, Mrs. Jones" I whispered, the world turning grey at the edges.
I stumbled back to the house, the weight of the realization pressing down on me. John was the ghost of my father’s past—the man who had been his shadow during the years of addiction, the one who always had a bottle and an excuse ready. For my father to seek him out now, after the encounter with Marcus Blackwood... it meant the trauma wasn't just a memory. It was an active, bleeding wound.
I was sitting on the kitchen floor, my head in my hands, when the front door opened. I scrambled to my feet, hoping it was him, but it was my mother. She was carrying a bag of groceries, her face bright with the small triumph of finding a bargain, until she saw me.
She dropped the bags on the counter, the sound of breaking eggs and rustling plastic ignored. "Elena? What is it? Is it the baby? Is it Victor?"
"Mr. Blackwood was here, Mom," I said, the words tumbling out in a rush. "He came with a gift basket, acting like he wanted to be family. But Dad saw him. He saw him and... Mom, it was like they were at war. Dad talked about a fire in the Town. He talked about reports and tragedies and 'interests.' He told Mr. Blackwood to leave or he’d finish what started twenty-eight years ago."
My mother’s face went completely still. It wasn't the shock of someone hearing news; it was the stillness of someone watching a ghost walk through a wall. She sat down heavily at the kitchen table, her hands trembling.
"And where is your father now?" she asked, her voice a ghost of itself.
"He went out with John," I whispered. "Mrs. Jones saw them. She said he looked... broken. Mom, I think he’s going to drink. I think he’s gone back to it."
My mother closed her eyes, a single tear escaping and tracing a path through the fine lines on her face. "John. After all these years. He always goes to John when the smoke gets too thick."
"What smoke, Mom?" I grabbed her hands, my voice desperate. "What happened in thatTown? Why did Mr. Blackwood look like he’d seen a demon? Who am I to them? Who is Victor to us?"
My mother looked at me, and for a second, I saw a flash of the same terrifying pity I had seen in my father’s eyes.
"Elena, listen to me," she said, her grip on my hands tightening until it hurt. "There are things in this world that are kept in the dark because the light would burn everything we love. Your father... he has carried a burden that would have broken a hundred men. When he saw Marcus Blackwood in his living room, he wasn't seeing a billionaire. He was seeing the man who stole the air from his lungs."
"But what does that mean for me and Victor?" I cried. "We’re having a child! Victor said he’s coming home! How can I bring a baby into a family that has this much blood on its hands?"
"We wait," my mother said, her voice regaining a sliver of its usual steel. "We wait for your father to come home. He will explain himself when he is ready, and not a moment before. You cannot force a man to speak when he is trying to drown the screams in his head."
"But if he's drinking—"
"Then we will pick him up, like we always have," she interrupted. "But you... you need to be still, Elena. For the baby. If you go chasing after him in the taverns, or if you keep calling Victor until your heart stops, you will lose the only thing that is truly yours."
We sat there in the fading light, two women bound by the secrets of men who were currently shattering their own lives. The gift basket sat on the table, a lavish, mocking centerpiece.
"Do you think Victor knows?" I asked after a long silence.
"I think Victor is a man who was raised in a house of mirrors," my mother replied, looking out the window toward the darkening street. "He only sees what they want him to see. But the truth... the truth is like water, Elena. It always finds the lowest point. It always finds a way out."
We sat in the kitchen for hours, the ticking of the clock the only sound in the house, waiting for the headlights of a rusted blue sedan to turn into our driveway. Waiting for the man who held the key to our identity to come home and tell us if we were finally free, or if the fire from twenty-eight years ago was finally going to consume us all.