Chapter 1 - My daughter’s hands
My name is Alex Vance.
People who did business with me liked to describe me as intimidating.
Thirty-four.
Dark suits.
Few words.
A company large enough that strangers occasionally mistook silence for menace.
At home, none of that mattered.
I was Daddy.
That evening I returned from a four-day business trip and walked into my kitchen carrying one suitcase.
My daughter Chloe stood on a wooden stool beside the sink.
Three years old.
Floral dress.
Tears running down her cheeks.
She was holding a ceramic serving dish that looked almost as heavy as she was.
Her hands were red.
“Daddy… hurry, or Grandma says Mommy and I don’t get dinner.”
Then I saw Maya.
My wife.
Both wrists wrapped in bandages.
I dropped the suitcase.
Across the room, my mother Evelyn was entertaining twelve guests as though nothing was wrong.
She looked at Maya.
May you like
“Serve my guests first.”
That was when I stopped hearing anything except my own breathing.
