Every few steps she had to stop, breathing hard, using both hands to drag them forward.
She was wearing a light blue dress Daniel had bought her before he left.
Now it was torn, smeared with dirt and bits of food waste.
Her sneakers were caked with mud.
Her usually tidy hair was tangled and unwashed.
But what shattered Daniel’s heart most wasn’t her appearance.
It was the look on her face.
It wasn’t the tired expression of a child who had been playing too long.
It was the face of someone who had already learned that asking for help wouldn’t change anything.
Daniel’s jaw clenched.
In that moment, every business deal he had closed, every skyscraper he had financed, every investment he had celebrated suddenly felt meaningless.
Up on the balcony overlooking the yard, stretched comfortably across a lounge chair, sat Caroline Brooks — his wife of six months.
A cocktail rested lazily in her hand as she laughed into her phone.
She hadn’t even bothered to glance down once.
“I swear, it’s ridiculously easy,” Caroline said between giggles. “I’ve got the kid working like a maid, and her father’s too busy making money to notice anything. She’s too scared to say a word.”
Daniel’s vision blurred with rage.
But he remained still.
Not yet.
