Audrey, call me.
I stared at the final question until the answer became clear.
He was not asking why I had stopped trusting him. He was not asking why I had been left on a bus five days after surgery.
He was asking why I had not told him something that could have made me more useful.
Victoria called next.
“Audrey, sweetheart,” she said, using a name she had never once called me during seven years of marriage.
“Victoria.”
“There has clearly been a misunderstanding.”
“No,” I said. “There has been a long pattern.”
She paused. “Dominic feels terrible.”
“He should.”
Her voice grew quieter. “Your father is really General Brooks?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you keep that from us?”
“Because I wanted to know how you would treat me when you believed my family had nothing to offer you.”
Silence filled the line.
“So thank you,” I said.
“For what?”
“For answering that question.”
The next morning, Dominic appeared outside the townhouse holding a large bouquet of flowers. He wore the navy suit I used to love and the expensive watch he had bought after one of his investor dinners.
From the security camera, he looked like a man rehearsing remorse.
The guard refused to let him inside.
“I am her husband,” Dominic said.
“The child and his mother are safe,” the guard replied.
“You cannot keep me from my family.”
That was when my father stepped outside.
Dominic saw him and went still.
“General Brooks,” he said.
Dad stopped several feet away. “Mr. Hale.”
“I think Audrey misunderstood what happened.”
“No,” Dad replied. “She understood it exactly.”
Dominic’s face tightened. “We had an argument.”
“My daughter was recovering from surgery and carrying your newborn son. You drove away in her vehicle to take your mother to lunch.”
“I did not force her onto the bus.”
My father’s expression did not change.
“That is the defense you chose?”
Dominic opened his mouth, but no words came out.
Dad spoke quietly. “Audrey’s legal matters will be handled by her attorney. You will not contact her except through counsel. You will not use my name to excuse the consequences of your own choices.”
Dominic nodded quickly.
Then my father added, “And you will stop telling people I destroyed your business.”
Dominic turned pale.
“Your company’s investors are asking questions because your wife’s attorney corrected false assumptions about her assets,” Dad said. “That is not destruction. That is accountability.”
Dominic looked toward the townhouse windows as if he hoped I might come outside and save him.
I did not.
Later that night, my phone rang again. I answered only because I wanted to hear him explain.
“What did you do?” he demanded.
“I told the truth.”
“You ruined Hale Capital.”
