Rose froze.
The words hung between them like a thick, suffocating fog.
“I don’t believe he’s dead.”
Her father.
The man who ruined her life. The man who gambled away her childhood shattered her family and left her with wounds that never truly healed.
Christian’s voice echoed in her ears, but it felt distant like everything around her had been dipped in water.
She swallowed hard, her voice barely above a whisper. “You… looked into him?”
Christian nodded, his eyes locked onto hers. “I had someone dig through records. There’s no death certificate. No evidence that he died.”
Her knees buckled, and she reached blindly for the armrest of the nearby chair, sitting down as if her bones could no longer hold her up.
He’s alive.
But she already knew that.
She had known for a while.
She ju
