“I’m sitting here.”
“Exactly.”
Kendal reached over and touched his hand.
Marcus closed his fingers around hers.
“I should’ve gotten you out sooner,” he said.
“You didn’t know.”
“I knew enough.”
“You believed me.”
“Not fast enough.”
“Dad.”
He finally looked at her.
“I told you he was messing with the audition rankings,” Kendal said. “You believed me. You got the recorder. You called Mom. You called Ms. Sterling.”
Marcus shook his head.
“I should have walked into that school the first time he called you lazy.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You would have yelled at him.”
“Probably.”
“He would have called security.”
“Probably.”
Kendal almost smiled.
“And then we wouldn’t have the recordings.”
Marcus stared at her.
She squeezed his hand.
“We got him.”
Marcus’s eyes hardened again.
“No.”
Kendal frowned.
“We stopped him,” Marcus said. “The court decides what happens to him.”
That distinction mattered to Marcus.
He had repeated it since the first meeting with Eleanor.
This was not revenge.
He did not want his daughter believing justice meant destroying another human being.
It meant establishing facts.
It meant forcing systems to respond.
It meant refusing to allow power to erase what had happened.
Still, when the doctor handed Marcus a printed summary of Kendal’s injuries, his hands trembled.
That evening, Kendal’s mother returned from a nursing conference in Indianapolis three days early.
Danielle Mercer did not knock when she reached the front door.
She came through it carrying a suitcase in one hand and dropped everything the moment she saw Kendal sitting on the couch.
“My baby.”
Kendal barely had time to stand.
Danielle wrapped both arms around her.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Danielle leaned back and saw the bruising along Kendal’s face.
Her expression changed.
Marcus, standing in the kitchen doorway, recognized it immediately.
Kendal did too.
“Mom.”
“Where is he?”
“Mom.”
“Marcus, where is that man?”
“Currently not here, which is good for everybody.”
Danielle turned toward him.
“You let him put his hands on our child?”
Marcus slowly raised both hands.
“I was not in the room when it happened.”
“You knew he was targeting her!”
“Yes.”
“And you sent her back?”
“Because we needed evidence.”
Danielle stared at him.
“You used my daughter as bait?”
The house went silent.
Kendal stood.
“Nobody used me.”
Danielle turned back.
Kendal’s voice shook, but she continued.
“I wanted to go back.”
“You are seventeen.”