Chapter 2: The Man Behind the Door
The memory vanished when Olivia knelt beside the window seat and pressed a loose wooden panel.
It opened with a soft click.
Inside was a photograph I had never seen.
Isabelle stood outside the preschool beside a man whose face had been scratched away with a red crayon.
“Who is he?” I asked.
Sophie pointed to his hand.
A blue stone ring shone on his smallest finger.
“The man in the car,” she whispered.
Olivia’s voice trembled.
“Mommy called him Uncle.”
My stomach tightened.
Only three men outside our family had ever been allowed that name.
Grace suddenly stepped between the girls and the library door.
“Mr.
Romano, lock this room.”
“Why?”
“Because I saw that ring this morning.”
“On whom?”
Before she could answer, footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Nora grabbed my hand for the first time in fourteen months.
“He told us not to talk,” she whispered.
“He said Daddy would be next.”
The door handle slowly turned.
Grace pulled the children behind her.
I moved in front of them as a familiar voice came from the other side.
“Dominic?
Mrs.
Donnelly said you came home early.”
Then Sophie looked up at me, terrified.
“That’s him.”
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Dominic trusted the man outside that door—but why had Isabelle hidden his photograph?
Click the link below to uncover the full truth.
