Chapter Thirty-Five: Blood on His Hands
Lucia sat by the window, watching the city lights shimmer against the dark sky, but her eyes weren't on the glow. They were on memories she had tried, for years, to bury.
She was only eight when she first realized her father, David, was not like other men.
It had been a late night, Margret asleep after a long day, and she had wandered the halls of their home, curious and restless. Doors were cracked open, shadows spilling from rooms. Voices floated through the silence.
She had crouched by the staircase, tiny hands gripping the railing, heart hammering in her chest.
"Did you do it?" a man had asked.
"I told you, it's done," David's voice replied, calm, unnervingly calm. "No witnesses. Nobody knows."
There had been another voice, muffled, distant, and then silence. Footsteps moving away.
Lucia had imagined a game, at first—pretending these were stories like in the books her mother read to her. But she hadn't been able to shake the feeling that the shadows themselves had eyes, and that the whispers were real.
As she grew older, the pieces came together.
The men who vanished.The accidents that seemed too convenient.The sudden promotions, resignations, and disappearances that always followed a quiet command from her father.
Her father was a man who could kill with patience.A man who could erase evidence with a single phone call.A man who never raised a hand in anger—but whose presence alone carried the weight of fear.
Lucia had learned to listen, to notice. To count and remember details.
Names. Dates. Places. Faces.
She remembered one night, curled in bed, listening while Margret sobbed softly in the next room. She heard him speak over the phone, words sharp and quiet.
"They won't see it coming. By morning, it will be clean."
Lucia pressed her pillow against her face, stomach turning. Clean. Blood on his hands, she thought. Not literal, not exactly—but it felt like blood.
Even as a child, she had understood: his hands were never clean.
Everything she had seen since—the running, the hiding, the fear—was proof. Her mother had escaped the first wave. She herself had been spared, but only because David didn't know the full truth about what she had heard.
Now, years later, sitting with her mother in a cramped apartment halfway across the world, she understood the stakes.
Margret's illness, the years of hiding, the careful avoidance of anyone who might connect them back to David—every precaution had been necessary. Every silence, every lie, every secret kept was a shield against a man who did not hesitate to destroy what he could not control.
Lucia's stomach churned as she thought of Eli. The boy had been kind. Or so it seemed. But with her father's reach in mind, every "coincidence" now appeared suspicious. Every innocent question might be a step toward betrayal.
She remembered the first time she had realized the depth of her father's cruelty. She had been twelve, hiding in her room after school, overhearing him speak to a politician.
"It will be worth it," he had said. "Every obstacle removed. Everyone who stands in my way… gone. No trace."
Her mother had come to the doorway, startled. She hadn't seen Lucia at first. "David, what—"
He had silenced her with a glance.
And Lucia had seen fear that no child should ever witness.
Now, she sat quietly beside Margret, eyes wide in the dim lamplight, remembering each moment. Each whispered conversation. Each suspicious absence of a person who had been alive one day and gone the next.
Blood on his hands.It wasn't just metaphorical.It was the quiet way he accumulated power: through threats, lies, silence, and elimination.
Lucia pressed her palms to her eyes. She tried not to cry, but the weight of knowledge was suffocating.
"You have to understand something," Margret said softly from the bed. "He didn't just take what he wanted. He left a path. A trail. And if we're not careful, we'll follow it."
Lucia nodded, swallowing hard. "I understand, Mama. I do."
Margret reached out, brushing her daughter's hair from her face. "This is why the rule exists. Never let anyone see where we live. Never let anyone see where we hide. Never trust appearances. Never think kindness is harmless."
Lucia's hands trembled. "I know."
Margret's eyes softened for a moment, but the tension never left her face. "Knowledge is a gift, but it's dangerous. You've seen too much. You remember too much. And so does he."
Lucia swallowed the lump in her throat. The city outside was quiet now, but she could feel the weight of it pressing in through the thin walls of their apartment. Everywhere, somewhere, someone was watching. Waiting. Planning.
Blood on his hands. Lucia could never forget that.And now, more than ever, she understood the stakes.