Chapter 33 #3
The man sitting behind the desk now looked as though life had finally caught up with him.
The lines around his eyes seemed deeper than I remembered.
His shoulders no longer sat quite as straight, and the confidence that had always surrounded him seemed to have worn away somehow.
It wasn’t simply exhaustion. I recognised exhaustion.
I’d seen it countless times growing up when business kept him working late into the night.
This felt different.
He looked like a man carrying a weight he could no longer put down.
“She’s alive.” The certainty in his voice caught me off guard.
“How could you possibly know that?” Marco barked.
“You let her be taken from us, Dad. You left her with just one guard in her car. You got us involved with Adrien fucking Vescari, who is currently trying just that little bit too hard to prove he’s a heartbroken man in search of his fiancé.
I’m not buying a word of it. So tell me—how the fuck do you know she’s alive? ”
“I just do.”
“Then do something,” Marco barked, turning to face my dad.
“Do what mother is begging for and put some of that fortune to good use. Hell, take my fucking share of it. I don’t want it if it means Isabelle isn’t here to benefit from it!
If you’re so certain she’s alive, why are you not on every news station giving interviews like Adrien is?
Why does he seem to care more than you do? ”
The tension in the room immediately sharpened.
My mother lowered herself into one of the chairs without taking her eyes off either of them, as though she was too exhausted to intervene but too terrified to look away.
Marco walked over and planted both hands on the edge of the desk. “You’re sitting here acting like there’s nothing else we can do. I’m not buying it.”
“I don’t have the money for a large-scale investigation!” My father gritted, embarrassment colouring his cheeks.
“Bullshit!” Marco roared, making even me flinch, and I wasn’t in the room.
My dad probably wasn’t lying though. My mind flashed back to the conversation with Adrien, discussing my mother’s spending habits and the second mortgage on the house.
“You’re hiding something. I know you are,” Marco snapped. “When I find out what it is, I can assure you, you’ll be very fucking sorry if your secrets have hindered Isabelle’s return.”
My dad sighed heavily. “Stop being dramatic, Marco. We’ve done everything we can. What possible reason could I have for not wanting my only daughter returned home?”
“Possibly the same reason that had you throwing her out of the house in the first place and into the Vescari’s arms.”
“I didn’t throw her out! Isabelle was willingly marrying—”
“That’s bullshit and you know it!”
“Marco—”
“No,” the interruption was immediate. His voice cracked beneath the anger, and suddenly he looked less like the older brother who spent half his life irritating me and more like someone desperately trying to stop his family from falling apart.
“You know something. And I’m not going to rest until I find out what it is. If I have to speak to Adrien myself, I’ll fucking do it.”
“Marco—” my mum tried to intervene, resting her hand on his arm. He shook her off and scowled down at her.
“Don’t even get me started on you. I can’t fucking bear to look at either of you. I’ll find Isabelle myself, and when I do, I’ll make sure neither of you get close enough to harm her again!”
He stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. And then I was left with just my mum and dad.
And I felt something unpleasant twist inside my chest.
Because the father I remembered would have argued. He would have shouted. He would have insisted that there was always another option, another contact, another favour to call in.
Instead, he sounded like a man who had already calculated every possible outcome and reached a conclusion he didn’t like.
Maybe he had fought harder than any of us realised.
Maybe he had exhausted every lead available to him and spent countless sleepless nights searching for a solution.
But somewhere along the line he had realised exactly who he was dealing with, and he had accepted a truth that Marco still refused to face.
He couldn’t beat the mafia.
That’s why he was being so secretive. He knew he had explored too deeply, tried too hard to reconnect with his old family roots. He might not know which mafia family was responsible for my disappearance, but he knew one of them was.
That’s the truth he couldn’t admit to his family.
And that’s the reason he’d never dig too hard to find me.
That realisation hurt far more than I expected it to.
For twenty-one years, I’d believed that if something terrible happened to me, my father would come for me.
Not because of his money or his reputation, but simply because he was my dad.
It was one of those truths children accept without question, right alongside the belief that their parents know everything and can fix anything.
Watching him now, sitting behind that desk while my family unravelled around him, I realised that somewhere between my disappearance and this moment, he had stopped looking for a way to bring me home and started looking for a way to survive losing me.
And I wasn’t sure I would ever forgive him for that.