Chapter 13 - The Voice on the Other End
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Something in my father’s voice shifted the entire atmosphere of the room. It wasn’t loud. He didn't yell or scream the way Carter did when he wanted to assert dominance. It didn’t need to be loud. It carried the quiet, terrifying weight of a man who held genuine power and was entirely unafraid to use it.
"Put my daughter on the phone right now," my father ordered.
Carter looked down at me. I was still curled on the kitchen floor, one hand pressed desperately against my tightening stomach and the other trembling against the baseboards, surrounded by my own blood.
"I'm not putting her on the phone until she calms down and stops acting like a hysterical child," Carter scoffed, refusing to surrender control to a man he deemed inferior.
My father replied quietly, his words precise and devastatingly sharp. "You have exactly ten seconds to hand her that phone, or you will deeply regret the next decision you make."
Carter laughed out loud, leaning back against the marble counter.
"Are you actually trying to threaten me?" Carter mocked. "Do you have any idea who I am? I'm a lawyer. I can have you arrested for harassment."
"No," Dad answered smoothly. "I am not threatening you. I think you are making a very serious, life-altering mistake."
Mrs. Eleanor suddenly stood up from the dining room chair, her instincts finally warning her that something was horribly wrong. The amusement vanished from her face entirely.
"Carter, hang up the phone right now," she whispered urgently.
But Dad heard her voice through the speaker.
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"And who is that?" my father asked, his tone dropping an octave. "Is that the mother who watched it happen?"
Nobody answered him. The silence in the kitchen became absolutely deafening. The arrogance that had fueled Carter and Eleanor all evening was beginning to crack, replaced by the very first shadows of genuine doubt and fear.
