He Won The Case, He Lost His Family Chapter 07

He Won The Case, He Lost His Family Chapter 07

“I want the truth, Sienna,” Graham said.

His stare frightened her. She retreated until the edge of a table struck the back of her thigh

“I told you the truth,” she insisted. “How could you doubt me?”

“I’ve loved you all these years. I ended my marriage because I thought we still had a chance, and now you’re treating me like a suspect.”

Her voice sharpened. “Did you forget what you promised?

“You said you would protect me and Derek. You said no one would ever hurt us again.”

So there had been promises I never knew about.

I had expected the truth, yet hearing it still sent a dull ache through my chest.

I knew the broad outline of their history. Graham and Sienna had dated when they were young, but arguments about money and ambition eventually tore them apart.

Sienna married a wealthy American entrepreneur and moved to London. Graham buried the heartbreak beneath work and built his reputation one punishing case at a time.

Several years later, mutual family friends introduced him to me.

Our backgrounds fit, our temperaments seemed compatible, and neither of us wanted a dramatic

courtship.

We married, built a home, and had Tessa.

Our love was quieter than the passion he once shared with Sienna, but for a long time I believed our life was warm and secure.

Graham became successful and never restricted what Tessa or I spent. Our daughter was gentle, responsible, and academically gifted.

Then Sienna returned and dismantled everything.

Taking Graham from our home had not been enough. She and Derek had destroyed the daughter

who still loved him.

Graham released a weary breath.

“I made those promises,” he said. “But that was the past.”

“I’m Laurel’s husband and Tessa’s father. My responsibility is to my family.”

His voice caught on our daughter’s name. “I have to learn what really happened to her.”

“And after you learn it?” I asked.

Both of them looked at me.

“If Derek was the one who pushed Tessa, would you hand the evidence to the district attorney and testify against him?”

Graham fell silent.

When he condemned Tessa, every answer had been immediate and absolute. Faced with Sienna’s

son, he could not give me the same certainty.

At last, he sighed. “I’ll find a way to protect everyone involved.”.

He had cornered Tessa, threatened her with prison, and called her a disgrace until death seemed like her only escape. For Derek, he still wanted compromise.

It had always been about the weight Sienna carried in his heart and the weight I did not.

I refused to spend another minute watching him pretend otherwise. As I reached the front door, a young woman stepped onto the porch with a small shopping bag.

“Mrs. Mercer?” she asked politely.

“Is Tessa home?”

I recognized Camille Rhodes, one of Tessa’s closest classmates.

“I had been overseas with my family, and my phone barely worked,” Camille explained. “I hadn’t been able to reach her.”

She lifted the bag. “But I found the lavender sleep pouch she asked me to bring back.

“She said Mr. Mercer had insomnia and made me promise to buy the best one.”

Behind me, Graham went rigid.

Camille took out a sealed envelope and placed it on top of the pouch.

“She wrote this for him too. She was embarrassed to give it to him herself, so she asked me to deliver both.”

The envelope weighed almost nothing, yet looking at it stole the air from my lungs. I could not

make my hand close around it.

“Tessa isn’t here,” I said, choking on each word. “Tessa died.”

Camille stared at me. Then tears spilled down her face.

“Derek did it, didn’t he?” she whispered.

“He was always hurting her.”

“What did you say?”

I caught her wrist like a drowning woman finding a rope.

Camille nodded through her tears and opened a folder on her phone.

“Tessa was afraid you would worry, so she made me promise not to tell you. But I recorded what I

could.”

“We took these clips to a school administrator. She said Derek had powerful people behind him and there was nothing she could safely do.”

Her eyes moved toward Graham. “Everyone knew Tessa’s father was Briarhaven’s best lawyer.

“Why couldn’t he protect her?”

Graham lowered his face.

I no longer cared about his shame. I opened the first video with shaking hands.

Derek and two boys forced Tessa into a restroom and locked the door. In another clip, they dumped filthy mop water over her head while she tried not to cry.

They pressed thumbtacks into her chair. They punched and kicked places her clothes would conceal, laughing as she curled against a row of lockers.

The bruises had been hidden from me, but the pain had settled deep inside both of us.

My heart felt as though it were tearing open again. Even my breath carried the taste of blood.

I thrust the phone toward Graham.

“Look at what the boy you treated like a son did. What excuse did you have left?”

At last, I understood why Tessa had come home exhausted and withdrawn, her clothes stained and

wrinkled.

Whenever I asked, she blamed roughhousing at school or the stress of final exams.

I had sensed that something was wrong. I simply never imagined Derek would dare go this far.

Graham had indulged someone else’s son until he believed he could do anything without

consequences.

Then he had used his power to push his own daughter into hell.