Chapter Thirty-Three: Margret Knows Too Much
David had not slept in three nights.
Sleep required peace, and peace was something Margret had stolen from him long ago.
He stood alone in his private study, the city lights stretching beneath his window like a kingdom that belonged to him by blood and secrets. His reflection stared back from the glass—older now, heavier, but still powerful. Still feared.
Yet fear was no longer only something he gave.
It was something he felt.
"Find them," he said into the phone, his voice low and sharp. "I don't care how much it costs."
The man on the other end hesitated. "Sir… it's not just about the woman anymore."
David's jaw tightened. "Explain."
"The girl," the man continued. "Lucia. She remembers things. More than we thought."
Silence followed.
David slowly lowered the phone.
Lucia.
That was the mistake he had made years ago—assuming a child would forget. Assuming silence erased memory.
It didn't.
Children remembered everything. Especially the things adults tried to hide.
Years earlier, Lucia had been small, quiet, always sitting at the edge of rooms, listening.
She had heard the late-night arguments. The threats disguised as whispers. The names that never appeared in newspapers but disappeared from streets.
She had seen men come into their house and never leave.
She had watched her father wash blood from his hands and kiss her forehead like nothing was wrong.
And Margret had seen her watching.
That was the problem.
Margret didn't just survive David—she witnessed him.
David poured himself a drink, his hands steady despite the storm inside him.
"She knows," he muttered.
Not everything. But enough.
Enough to ruin him.
Enough to undo years of carefully built lies.
Margret had always been observant. Too observant for a wife. Too quiet for a victim.
He remembered the way she used to look at him toward the end—not with fear, but with understanding.
Understanding was dangerous.
That was why he had planned her disappearance so carefully back then. A slow illness. A clean divorce. Custody papers prepared in advance.
Dead women didn't talk.
But Margret had slipped through his fingers.
And now she was sick, poor, cornered—and still dangerous.
Across the ocean, Margret sat in the dark, staring at the wall.
Her body hurt. Her joints ached. Her chest burned with every breath.
But pain was familiar.
Fear was not.
Lucia slept fitfully on the mattress beside her, murmuring in her dreams. Margret watched her daughter's chest rise and fall, counting each breath like a prayer.
"She knows too much," Margret whispered to herself.
Lucia had known things no child should have known.
Margret had tried to protect her—turning up music, sending her to her room—but children listened harder when they weren't meant to.
When Margret ran, she didn't just run from betrayal or sickness.
She ran because David's world was soaked in blood, and Lucia had stepped in it barefoot.
Margret coughed violently, covering her mouth with a cloth. When she pulled it away, there was blood.
She closed her eyes.
Not yet, she begged silently. Not before I finish this.
She reached under the bed and pulled out a small bag. Inside was an old phone—cracked screen, no SIM card.
The phone David never knew about.
The phone that held recordings.
Voices. Dates. Names.
Proof.
She had kept it all these years, not because she planned revenge—but because she knew one day, she might not be alive to explain the truth herself.
Lucia would need answers.
And protection.
Margret held the phone to her chest, tears sliding down her face.
"If he finds me," she whispered, "he will come for you next."
David sat with his advisors the next morning.
"The woman is weak," one of them said. "Ill. Poor. She won't last."
"That's what worries me," David replied coldly. "Desperate people do desperate things."
Another man leaned forward. "What about the girl?"
David's eyes hardened. "The girl is the real threat."
A pause.
"She saw things," David continued. "She heard things. If Margret talks to her—if she already has—then silence is no longer guaranteed."
"What do you want done?" the man asked carefully.
David didn't answer immediately.
Outside, cameras flashed. Reporters shouted questions about corruption allegations he had buried months ago.
His image was cracking.
Finally, he spoke. "Find Margret. Quietly."
"And the child?"
David's lips curled into something that resembled a smile but wasn't one.
"She comes with me."
Lucia woke to her mother sitting beside her.
"Mum?" she murmured.
Margret brushed Lucia's hair back gently. "If anything happens to me," she said softly, "you must remember one thing."
Lucia sat up, fear flooding her instantly. "Don't say that."
"Listen to me," Margret insisted. "You are not powerless."
Lucia shook her head. "I don't want power. I want you."
Margret swallowed hard.
"There are things I have kept," she continued. "For you. Because one day, the truth might need a voice."
Lucia's eyes widened. "What kind of things?"
Margret didn't answer fully. She only said, "Enough to make monsters bleed."
Lucia hugged her tightly. "He won't find us."
Margret closed her eyes.
He already has, she thought.
That evening, a black car parked across the street again.
This time, it didn't leave.
Margret watched it from the window, her heart pounding but her face calm.
"They're here," she whispered.
Lucia followed her gaze and felt the truth settle heavily in her chest.
This wasn't a search anymore.
It was a countdown.
And David knew it.
Because Margret knew too much.
And Lucia knew everything else.