Chapter 67 A Father’s Apology

Chapter 67 A Father’s Apology
A delivery driver passing by helped me out of the car and got me sitting on the curb while he kept asking if he should call an ambulance. After gulping down some fresh air, I finally came around enough to thank him and wave him off.

"Don't sleep in your car with the engine running anymore, okay? That's seriously dangerous!" He gave me one last warning before heading back to his route.

I sat there on the curb for a while, waiting for my head to clear, when I suddenly remembered someone had called me right before I passed out.

Standing up slowly, I grabbed my phone from between the seats and glanced at the screen to find the call was still in progress.

Caspian.

Ten minutes of call duration stared back at me as I lifted the phone to my ear and managed a weak hello.

Silence.

My head was still foggy from the carbon monoxide, and I pulled the phone away, ready to just hang up, when his voice suddenly came through.

"Are you awake?"

The tone was so flat and emotionless I couldn't tell what he was thinking, but something about it made my chest tighten anyway.

"Yeah," I said quietly while rolling down the window. "I'm okay."

More silence followed, so long I thought the call had dropped before his voice came through again. "Good."

I slumped back in the driver's seat and heard him speak once more. "Do you want to tell me anything?"

Wait, that didn't sound right since my brain was still scrambled from everything.

"Huh?" It took me a second to realize he'd asked me that, not the other way around. "Oh. Thank you. For sending Marcus to help me. He really... if it wasn't for him, I probably wouldn't even be talking to you right now."

Caspian ignored my thanks completely and asked, "Where are you?"

"I don't know." I looked around at the unfamiliar street, trying to get my bearings. "No idea what district this is, but I'll head back soon. It should be evening in there countries, right? You should rest. Good night."

He didn't respond, so I ended the call before the silence could stretch any longer and set my phone down. I just sat there for a moment, staring at nothing, when it suddenly rang again with Evelyn's name flashing on the screen.

Every muscle in my body tensed as I answered immediately.

"Oh my god!" Evelyn's voice came through thin and shaking. "Your father's awake!"

The words didn't register at first, then they hit me all at once, and I went completely numb before hanging up and gunning it toward the hospital where Richard Quinn was staying.

Dad was finally awake, but right now? At all times?

I should be happy, so why couldn't I feel anything but dread?

The drive across the city felt surreal, like I was watching myself from outside my body while everything that had happened in the past few hours kept replaying in my head. The investigation, Marcus's last-minute intervention, that strange phone call with Caspian, and now Dad waking up right when everything was falling apart around us.

When I pulled up to the hospital, I spotted them immediately at the entrance with two people from the investigation team already stationed there, like they'd been waiting for this exact moment.

At least Marcus had arranged for Dad to stay at a private hospital, the kind where even law enforcement needed proper clearance to barge in, and with Dad still in critical condition, they couldn't just walk in and start interrogating him whenever they felt like it.

I slipped past them and made my way to the two-story building where Dad's suite was located, taking the stairs two at a time until I reached the floor where the doctor was still inside examining him. Evelyn stood outside the door with Sophia and her brother, all of them looking exhausted and relieved at the same time.

The doctor emerged a few minutes later and announced that Mr. Quinn was asking for his daughter.

Sophia, my step-mother moved forward instantly, but Evelyn caught her arm and gently pushed me toward the door instead. "Your father wants to see you. Go on."

I stepped into the ward where my father lay in a hospital bed, and when he saw me, he smiled in a way that looked like it took everything he had just to manage.

I sat down beside him and leaned in close while returning his smile. "Took you long enough to wake up."

He raised his hand with visible effort and touched the corner of my eye. "Don't cry."

I wasn't crying, or at least I didn't think I was, just felt this awful tightness in my throat that wouldn't go away, no matter how hard I tried to swallow it down. "Dad, I'm sorry."

He shook his head slightly. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

"If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have had a heart attack and wouldn't have been lying here all this time."

"I would have found out eventually," he said, his voice weak but steady. "Vera, I told him everything about you."

I froze because his memory was still stuck before the heart attack, back when he'd gone to see Damien.

"I wanted him to know you didn't marry him for money or status, that you never did anything you should be ashamed of. I wanted him to let you go."

"Dad..."

"Stop holding onto the past." His grip on my hand tightened just slightly. "You're my daughter, and you don't owe me anything. You never did. So stop degrading yourself and stop sacrificing everything for people who don't deserve it. Vera, I just want you to be yourself again, like you used to be. Free and happy."

I shook my head, unable to get any words out past the lump in my throat.

"If you hadn't married into the Blackwood family, the Quinn family would have collapsed two years ago," he continued, each word coming out slower than the last. "And now, everything that was going to happen has happened anyway. Vera, this burden was always mine to carry as your father, and you've done more than enough. Let yourself go."

I stayed with him after that, just sitting in silence because there were a thousand things I wanted to say, but none of them would come out right. Eventually, the doctor returned and said Dad needed to rest, so I forced myself to leave even though every part of me wanted to stay.

Evelyn pulled me into a tight hug the moment I stepped out, and I could feel her trembling against me while Sophia was crying quietly, and her brother stood there looking shaken. We were all running on empty, stretched so thin we were barely holding together, but at least Dad was awake, and we had that much.

The investigation team tried to corner me on my way out, but the hospital staff blocked them before they could get close since they couldn't question a critically ill patient or harass family members on hospital grounds. It bought us a little time, at least.

By the time I made it back to Jade Bay, night had fallen completely, and the exhaustion was starting to catch up with me in waves.

Dad was awake, but the investigation team still couldn't talk to him directly, so they spent the entire day hounding me instead. I knew everything they wanted to know, but I couldn't give them what they wanted, so I spent hours going in circles and answering the same questions over and over while they tried to catch me in some inconsistency that didn't exist.

I was completely drained by the end of it, so I showered, dried my hair, and collapsed into bed without even bothering to check my phone.

Sleep took me almost instantly, deep and dreamless, until I heard it. The sound of my door opening.

I opened my eyes slowly and looked toward the bedroom door through the darkness, where the lights were off, and my door was ajar. In the shadows, I could make out a familiar tall figure standing in the doorway before walking toward my bed.

A faint smile tugged at my lips. "Did I really sleep so hard that I imagine you? Why are you even here?"

Caspian didn't answer.

He just reached out, pulled me into his arms, and held me tight.