[POV Xander]
The ride home was silent.
Lisa sat in the backseat, finally discharged from the hospital after two days of observation, her small body tucked against Nina's side. The twins held hands across the seat, their fingers intertwined, neither willing to let go of the other.
Sarah had brought Nina to the hospital that morning, and watching them reunite—watching Lisa's face light up at the sight of her sister—had been the only moment of pure joy in what had otherwise become a waking nightmare.
I kept my eyes on the road, my hands gripping the steering wheel with unnecessary force. Beside me, Daphne stared out the passenger window, her profile sharp and unreadable against the gray morning light.
She hadn't spoken to me directly since we'd returned from the precinct. When the doctors came with discharge papers, she addressed them. When Lisa asked questions, she answered. When Nina needed reassurance, she provided it. But to me, she offered nothing but silence—thick, weighted silence that pressed against my chest like a physical force.
Bianca's words played on repeat in my mind, a poison drip I couldn't turn off. I'd watched Daphne's face when she heard them, watched the confusion give way to suspicion, watched her eyes find mine and see something she hadn't expected.
Horror. That's what she'd seen: unmistakable, undisguisable horror.
Not the reaction of an innocent man, but the reaction of someone caught. Someone exposed.
"Daddy, can we get ice cream?" Nina's voice broke through my spiraling thoughts. "Lisa wants chocolate, she told me."
I glanced in the rearview mirror, finding Lisa's tired eyes watching me with quiet hope. "Is that true, sweetheart? You want ice cream?"
"Maybe later," Lisa's voice was still softer than usual, still carrying the weight of everything she'd been through. "I just want to go home first."
"Of course. Home first, ice cream later," I tried to inject warmth into my voice, tried to be the father my daughters needed me to be. "Whatever you want, baby girl. Today is your day."
The car fell silent again. I could feel Daphne's attention shift toward me briefly before returning to the window. The weight of her judgment pressed down on my shoulders, adding to the guilt already crushing my chest.
I should have told her everything from the beginning. I have explained about Marcus, about Bianca's threats, but I wasn’t strong enough to tell everything… My silence had nearly cost us our daughter, and yet I couldn’t mention Lora.
We pulled into the underground garage of our building, and I killed the engine. For a moment, none of us moved. Lisa seemed hesitant to leave the safety of the car, her eyes darting toward the elevator with something like fear.
"It's okay, sweetie," Daphne's voice was gentle, patient—everything it wasn't when she spoke to me. "We're home now, and nobody can hurt you here."
"Promise?"
"Daddy and I will never let anything happen to you again."
The words landed like a blow. Daddy and I. As if we were still a united front, as if the chasm opening between us wasn't growing wider with every passing hour.
We made our way upstairs, Lisa clinging to Daphne's hand, Nina chattering nervously about all the drawings she'd made while her sister was gone. I carried the overnight bag from the hospital and followed behind, feeling more like a stranger in my own home than the man who was supposed to protect it.
Once inside, Daphne settled the girls in their room with instructions to rest. I heard her promise to bring lunch soon, heard her voice warm and soothing as she tucked blankets around them.
Then she emerged, closed the door behind her, and the warmth vanished.
"We need to talk," her voice was flat, controlled. "The girls are resting, now is the time."
"Daphne, can we please—"
"No," she cut me off with a sharp gesture. "No more delays or excuses. I've given you time to find the right words, and all you've done is hide behind silence. So now you're going to tell me everything, and I mean everything, or I don't know how we move forward from here."
I sank onto the couch, the exhaustion of the past week finally catching up with me. My bones ached, my head pounded, but worse than any physical pain was the knowledge that I'd brought this on myself.
"Marcus Chen was my best friend," I forced the words out, each one heavy as stone. "We met in college, started the company together. He was the dreamer, I was the pragmatist. We balanced each other perfectly—or at least that's what I thought."
"What happened?"
"We started fighting. About the direction of the company, about money, about everything. I wanted to expand too fast, take risks he thought were reckless. He wanted to build slowly, sustainably," I rubbed my face with both hands. "The arguments got worse. We said things we couldn't take back. By the end, we could barely be in the same room."
Daphne remained standing, her arms crossed, her expression unreadable. "And then he died."
"Brake failure on a mountain road. The official ruling was accidental, but there were questions. My car had been seen near the site the day before. I'd made comments to colleagues about wishing I could run the company alone. I benefited financially from his death—his shares reverted to me under our partnership agreement."
"Did you do it?"
The question hung in the air, stark and terrible. My wife—the mother of my children, the woman I'd sworn to love and protect—was asking me if I was a murderer.
"No," I met her eyes directly, willing her to see the truth. "I swear to you, Daphne. I didn't tamper with his brakes and didn't hire anyone to hurt him. Yes, I was angry, but I would never—I could never—"
"Then why didn't you tell me about this? Why did I have to learn about it from the woman who kidnapped our daughter?"
"I was ashamed," this phrase cost me more than I'd expected, given that I told her the wrong story. "I spent years wondering if I could have prevented his death. If I'd been less stubborn, less focused on being right, maybe he wouldn't have been driving that road that day. Maybe he'd still be alive."
"That's not the same as killing him."
"But the guilt felt the same," I looked up at her, my vision blurring with tears I couldn't control. "Bianca found out somehow. She's been using it against me for months—threatening to expose me, to destroy everything I've built. When she demanded I step away from the company, I refused. I thought I could handle her on my own."
Daphne was quiet for a long moment. When she finally spoke, her voice had lost some of its edge, replaced by something more exhausted. Something more sad.
"I don't know what to do with this, Xander. I believe you didn't kill Marcus—I do. But you lied to me. You kept secrets that put our family at risk. How am I supposed to trust you after that?"
"I don't know," It was the most honest answer I could give. "I just know that I can't lose you, and I can't lose this family. Whatever it takes to earn back your trust, I'll do it."
She turned away, her shoulders tight, her breathing unsteady. "Is that the only thing you hid from me? I mean… Poor Marcus, but I don’t see him as a case worth such a fear you have in your eyes every time I mention ‘secrets’."
She walked toward our bedroom, pausing at the door. Without turning around, she spoke one last time. "The girls need stability right now. Whatever is happening between us, we keep it away from them, they've been through enough."
"Agreed."
The door closed behind her, and I was left alone in the silence of our living room, surrounded by the wreckage of my own making.