At three in the morning, Gabriel came back with a thick folder.
He dropped it on my desk.
“Found your Wade.”
I opened it.
Wade Calder.
Thirty-eight.
Three arrests.
No convictions.
Drunk driving. Assault complaints. Domestic disturbance calls.
Nothing that stuck.
The system had seen him.
It simply had not stopped him.
“Neighbors?” I asked.
Gabriel nodded.
“They heard the screaming. Nobody wanted to get involved.”
“Family?”
“Mother died years ago. Sister disappeared about eight months back.”
Lila’s mother.
My jaw tightened.
“Disappeared?”
“That’s what everyone says.”
The room went quiet.
I knew what Gabriel was thinking.
It was the same thing I was thinking.
Women do not usually vanish and leave their children behind for no reason.
“Find her,” I said.
Gabriel nodded, then hesitated.
“Victor.”
“What?”
“You getting attached?”
I looked up.
He regretted the question at once.
But I answered him anyway.
“Yes.”
His face softened.
Because Gabriel had known Clara.
He had known the man I used to be.
The man before grief turned me into stone.
At sunrise, I went to see Lila.
She was awake, sitting on the edge of the bed, watching Milo sleep.
The nurse had cleaned her wounds and given her fresh clothes.
She still looked ready to run.
“Morning,” I said.
She nodded.
No smile.
No greeting.
Just careful watching.
“Hungry?”
She hesitated.
Then nodded again.
Twenty minutes later, she ate more pancakes than I thought her small body could hold.
But she kept sliding pieces onto a napkin beside her.
Saving them.
That old, terrible habit of a child who never knew when food would come again.
I pretended not to notice at first.
Then I said gently, “Lila.”
She froze.
“You don’t have to save food anymore.”
Her eyes filled.
Not with relief.
With fear.
Promises had failed her before.
“I know,” she whispered.
But neither of us believed that she knew.
Around noon, a black SUV pulled into the repair shop lot.
One of my men came into the office.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“There’s a guy outside asking questions.”
“Who?”
“Wade.”
The room went still.
Gabriel stood at once.
“So soon?”
I closed the folder on my desk.
“What does he want?”
“Says he’s looking for his niece.”
I stood.
My pulse stayed calm.
Inside, something dark woke up.
Through the office window, I saw him.
Tall. Unshaven. Cheap jacket. A belly shaped by beer and cruelty.
Ordinary enough to disappear in any crowd.
The most dangerous kind of man.
He leaned against his truck, smoking a cigarette.
Laughing.
Laughing while the little girl he had tormented sat upstairs terrified of his shadow.
I walked outside alone.
Wade spotted me.
“You Marlowe?”
“Yes.”
“People say you found my niece.”
His tone told me everything.
He wasn’t worried.
He wasn’t frightened for her.
He sounded annoyed.
Like he was looking for a misplaced tool.
“She isn’t here,” I said.
He squinted.
“Funny. I heard different.”
“Then you heard wrong.”
Wade took a long drag from his cigarette.
“Look, man. It’s a family matter. Kid stole money and ran off.”
A lie.
A lazy one.
The kind told by people used to not being questioned.
“She stole my brother’s baby too.”
Another lie.
I stepped closer.
“Interesting.”
“Yeah.”
“Because she told me something different.”
For the first time, uncertainty crossed his face.
“What’d she say?”
I looked straight into his eyes.
“She said she’s afraid of you.”
Wade laughed.
Actually laughed.
“Kids make stuff up.”
I did not smile.
I did not blink.
After a moment, his grin died.
“Listen,” he said. “You hiding them?”
“Why?”
“Because they’re mine.”
Mine.
Not family.
Not loved.
Not my responsibility.
Mine.
Possession.
Control.
Something inside me hardened.
“You should leave,” I said.
His face darkened.
“You threatening me?”
“No.”
I moved one step closer.
“I’m giving you the best advice you’ll get all year.”
For one second, I thought he might swing.
Then he saw something in my eyes.
Something that made him think better of it.
He backed away slowly.
“Fine.”
He climbed into his truck and started the engine.
Then he pointed at me through the window.
“You tell Lila she belongs with family.”
The truck pulled away.
I watched until it disappeared.
Behind me, Gabriel came out.
“How bad?”
I did not answer right away.
I kept staring down the road.
Because Wade was not scared enough.
Men like him grow dangerous when cornered.
And I had taken away the thing he loved controlling most.
That meant he was not finished.
Not even close.
That night, while Lila and Milo slept upstairs, Gabriel walked into my office with another file.
His face was pale.
“What now?” I asked.
“You wanted us to find Lila’s mother.”
“And?”
He placed a photograph on my desk.
A woman stared up at me.
Thin.
Bruised.
Terrified.
She had Lila’s eyes.
“Where was this taken?”
“Six months ago.”
My stomach dropped.
Gabriel swallowed.
“We found her, Victor.”
“Alive?”
The silence answered first.
“No.”
I stared at the picture.
Then at the report beneath it.
The room seemed to lose all warmth.
Lila’s mother had not abandoned her children.
Someone had made sure she never came back.