Chapter 1 - The Empty Chair
Vanessa waited until I left the dining room before dumping an entire tray of pasta over my six-year-old daughter.
I heard Sofia scream from the hallway.
By the time I came back, thirty guests were standing around her like spectators at a show.
Cream sauce dripped from her curls. A broken plate lay near her bare knee. Nobody had moved to help.
Vanessa stood over her in a white silk dress, still holding the silver tray.
“That table is for real family,” she said.
Sofia wiped sauce from her eyes and cried, “Daddy said I belong here!”
I stopped in the doorway.
Every voice in the room died.
“Who touched my child?”
Vanessa looked at me and smiled.
“She needed to learn her place, Vincent.”
I crossed the room and dropped to my knees in front of Sofia.
“Baby, look at me. Did she hurt you?”
Sofia’s bottom lip shook.
“She destroyed Mommy’s letter.”
The room seemed to tilt.
My wife, Elena, had been missing for eighteen months.
Police said her car went through a guardrail during a storm. They found the vehicle in the river three days later.
They never found her body.
I had spent a year refusing to believe she was dead.
Then I had spent six months learning how to lie to myself.
“What letter?” I asked.
Sofia pointed toward Vanessa.
Vanessa’s smile disappeared.
Marco, one of my security men, grabbed me from behind.
“Walk away, boss.”
Wrong move.
I drove my elbow into his ribs, broke his grip, and shoved him across the dining table. Glasses crashed to the floor. Another guard rushed me with a chair. I kicked it aside and sent him into a wooden display shelf.
Guests screamed and backed toward the walls.
Vanessa ran for the exit with a torn envelope in her hand.
I blocked the doorway.
“Put my wife’s letter on the table.”
Her breathing changed.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then why are you running?”
She looked at Sofia.
For the first time, Vanessa looked afraid of a child.
I held out my hand.
“The letter.”
Vanessa whispered, “You weren’t supposed to know she was alive.”
My heart stopped.
May you like
Then Sofia pointed toward the basement door.
“Daddy,” she said, “Vanessa locked Mommy downstairs.”
