“Effective immediately?”
Patricia moved closer.
Richard straightened.
Daniel turned away from all of us.
“There is no need for that.
Give me until tomorrow morning.”
The answer was apparently no.
He lowered the phone slowly.
Patricia whispered, “What happened?”
Daniel looked at me.
“They’ve placed me on leave.”
Richard cursed under his breath.
Patricia’s shock lasted less than three seconds before it turned into anger.
Not at Daniel.
At me.
“Do you understand how hard he worked for that position?”
I stared at her.
My hand throbbed.
A blister had risen along the side of my palm.
“Do you understand what he just did to me?”
“He lost his temper,” she snapped.
“Marriage is complicated.
You don’t destroy a man’s career over one mistake.”
One mistake.
The phrase struck something cold inside me.
Daniel looked at his mother.
“Stop talking.”
She blinked.
“I’m defending you.”
“You’re on the feed too.”
That silenced her.
Richard looked toward the camera for the first time.
Then he stepped backward.
“Turn the thing off,” he said.
I shook my head.
“Not yet.”
Daniel’s phone chimed with an incoming message, followed by another call.
He stared at the screen and didn’t answer.
“What else did you send them?” he asked.
There it was.
The question I had expected.
The answer was not everything.
Not yet.
For months, I had kept records outside the house: photographs of bruises, dates, messages, recordings of threats, copies of apologies Daniel later pretended he had never written.
But I had learned something important from living with him.
Never show all your leverage at once.
“Enough,” I said.
His face changed again.
He knew me well enough to recognize when I was hiding something.
“What does that mean?”
I said nothing.
He moved toward me, then remembered the camera and stopped.
“Clara, listen to me.
Whatever you think you’ve collected, you’re upset.
You’re not thinking clearly.”
I almost admired the speed of the transformation.
