Chapter 9 - THE MAN WHO ASKED FOR FORGIVENESS
Marcus requested a meeting with Daniel.
The police allowed it under supervision.
He looked smaller without his expensive suit and confident smile. His hands rested on the table, and his eyes were tired.
“I know you hate me,” he said.
Daniel remained standing.
“I don't know what I feel.”
Marcus nodded.
“Fair enough.”
“Why did you do it?”
Marcus looked down.
“Because I spent my whole life being told I was almost family. Your father paid for my school, gave me a job, and invited me to holidays. But every time I asked where I belonged, he reminded me that I wasn't a Whitmore.”
“You were his son.”
“On paper. Not in public.”
Daniel pulled out the birth certificate.
“You could have told me.”
“I thought you'd see me as a threat.”
“You made yourself one.”
Marcus flinched.
For a moment, he looked like the young man Daniel remembered from university.
Then the expression vanished.
“I didn't want Olivia hurt.”
“You hid her in a room.”
“I thought Vanessa would scare her into signing the papers. I didn't know she would keep her there.”
“You checked the wall on the morning of my wedding.”
Marcus's eyes lowered.
“Yes.”
“You knew she was inside.”
He said nothing.
Daniel felt something inside him harden.
“You watched me stand at the altar while my wife was trapped behind a wall.”
Marcus began to cry.
“I thought I could still fix it.”
“You had eighteen months to fix it.”
“I know.”
Daniel placed a document on the table. It was a statement from the company offering to restore the stolen pension money through the sale of several properties and a personal contribution from the family trust.
“I'm not going to erase what you did,” Daniel said. “The police will decide what happens next. But I'm not going to let the employees pay for it.”
Marcus stared at the document.
“Why are you doing that?”
“Because they didn't choose any of this.”
“And me?”
Daniel took a breath.
“You're my brother. That doesn't make you innocent. It doesn't mean I'll visit you in prison. But I won't pretend you were never born.”
Marcus covered his face.
Daniel left without looking back.
Outside the station, Olivia waited with Lily.
The little girl ran to him.
“Daddy, are we going home?”
Daniel knelt and kissed her forehead.
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“Is Mommy coming too?”
Olivia smiled.
“If your father will have me.”
May you like
Daniel stood and reached for her hand.
“There's nowhere else I'd rather have you.”
