Chapter 2 - Mia Had Been Told to Count
I carried Mia into my private office upstairs.
She did not want to walk.
That told me enough.
I lifted her carefully, and she wrapped both arms around my neck with a grip that felt less like affection than relief.
Bianca stayed downstairs under Michael’s supervision. Grant remained with club medical staff while his condition was checked. I made one thing absolutely clear before leaving the foyer:
Neither of them was to leave the building.
Then I shut the office door.
Mia sat beside me on the leather sofa while I brought her water, crackers, and the soft gray blanket I kept in the cabinet for late nights.
She drank too fast.
I slowed her gently.
“Easy.”
Her hands were trembling.
I hated myself for not noticing sooner.
Not today.
Before today.
“How long were you there?” I asked.
Mia immediately looked toward the small clock on my office shelf.
“From nine-oh-three.”
I stared at her.
“How do you know?”
“Bianca told me to watch.”
That sentence made my stomach tighten.
“Watch what?”
“The big clock.”
“Why?”
Mia lowered her eyes.
“She said if I looked away, the lesson started over.”
I went completely still.
This was not an angry adult improvising punishment.
This had rules.
A beginning.
A duration.
A specific visual focus.
“What was the lesson?”
Mia didn’t answer immediately.
Instead she began picking at one cuff of her cardigan.
Finally:
“That Dad doesn’t always come.”
I felt something cold move through me.
“What?”
“She said you knew I was downstairs.”
“No.”
Mia looked up quickly.
“She said Michael called you.”
I looked toward the office door as though I could see through the floor below to where Michael stood.
“He didn’t.”
Mia’s eyes changed.
Not relief.
Confusion.
That was worse.
“She said you were busy.”
I had to control my face.
“What exactly did Bianca tell you?”
Mia swallowed.
“She said, ‘Your father knows where you are. Let’s see how long it takes him to bother coming.’”
For several seconds, I could not speak.
Nine hours.
Clock directly opposite her.
Do not move.
Do not look away.
This wasn’t just punishment.
Bianca wanted Mia to experience time passing.
She wanted my daughter to attach each movement of those clock hands to one thought:
Dad knows I’m here, and Dad is not coming.
I stood and walked to the window because if I stayed beside Mia, she would see what rage looked like before I could hide it.
Then she said:
“She came back sometimes.”
I turned.
“When?”
“When the long hand was at twelve.”
That meant every hour.
“What did she say?”
“Sometimes nothing.”
“And sometimes?”
Mia’s voice became small.
“She’d ask if I still thought you’d come.”
My hands curled into fists.
“How did you answer?”
“At first I said yes.”
I barely managed the next question.
“And later?”
She looked down.
“Later I didn’t.”
That was the first moment I understood the real damage Bianca was trying to create.
Not bruises.
Not a frightened afternoon.
A belief.
May you like
And she had spent nine hours trying to put it inside my daughter.
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