Chapter 2 - I did not hit her again
Forty people expected me to.
Some wanted it.
That is the sickness of reputation.
Men had spent years describing me as:
Ruthless.
Unpredictable.
The Bellafonte wolf.
A Mafia boss.
Some of that was mythology.
Some of it was earned.
But I was forty-six years old.
My daughter had almost gone down a staircase.
And I finally understood something my younger self would have mocked.
Violence after danger ends does not recover information.
It destroys it.
I stepped back.
“Marcus.”
He appeared beside me.
“Keep her here.”
Clarissa laughed.
“You’re detaining me now?”
“No.”
I took out my phone.
“I’m calling the police.”
That silenced the room almost as completely as Tilly’s fall.
Clarissa stared.
“You?”
“Yes.”
“You’re calling police?”
“My daughter was kicked down stairs in front of cameras.”
Her expression changed.
The old Bellafonte method would have protected her more than the legal one.
May you like
Private retaliation leaves room for denial.
Evidence does not.
