Vinie slowly pushed himself up from the floor, one knee still touching the ground as if the weight of everything pressing down on him hadn’t quite lifted yet. His shoulders were tense, his head slightly lowered, but it wasn’t fear that made him look like that.
It was restraint.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, his voice steady but carrying a quiet heaviness. “My brother doesn’t know who you are. He didn’t mean any disrespect.”
The word sir didn’t sit right with me.
It wasn’t just politeness. It wasn’t simple respect.
It was submission.
And in that moment, everything clicked into place.
The man standing in front of us… the one who had just struck my brother without hesitation… was not just any man.
He was Vinie’s father-in-law.
Elizabeth’s father.
I turned my head slowly and looked at V
