Chapter 19 - I Was Angry With Daniel Too
People expected me to be grateful Daniel survived.
I was.
They did not expect me to be furious.
I was that too.
He knew Ryan had altered records.
He knew Martin felt threatened.
He knew Margaret was pressuring him.
He told me none of it.
“Why?”
We were alone in his hospital room.
Daniel looked down.
“To protect you.”
“No.”
He looked up.
“You protected yourself from having to explain it to me.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“You decided what I could handle.”
He said nothing.
I continued:
“You let me attend your funeral without knowing you had been investigating your own brother.”
“I didn’t plan to be kidnapped.”
“I know.”
My voice broke.
“But before that. You had weeks.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“I thought I could fix it.”
There was the Vance family sentence.
Different words.
Same idea.
Keep it inside.
Handle it ourselves.
Protect people from the truth until the truth is convenient.
Daniel was better than Ryan.
Better than Margaret.
May you like
But he had inherited part of the same system.
That mattered if our marriage was going to survive.
