“How long?”
“Three months.”
Three months.
“And you didn’t tell us?”
She shook her head quickly.
“He said you’d overreact. That Dad cut him off because of ‘family drama’ that wasn’t his fault.”
I closed my eyes for a moment.
My husband had mentioned his brother only once. Victor had struggled with gambling—borrowed money, burned bridges. There had been shouting. The police once.
Then silence.
“He said he just wanted to reconnect,” Nora continued. “That I deserved to know that side of the family.”
“And grabbing your wrist?” I asked.
She looked down.
“I told him I didn’t want to meet anymore. I blocked him yesterday.”
My chest tightened.
“He got angry,” she whispered. “He said I owed him one conversation in person.”
The pieces finally clicked into place.
“He wasn’t saving you,” I said gently. “He was trying to stop you from leaving.”
Tears welled in her eyes.
“I didn’t want you to think I was stupid.”
I moved closer.
“You are not stupid,” I said firmly. “You were curious. That’s different.”
She wiped her face.
“I thought if I handled it myself, it would just go away.”
It almost never does.
That night, my husband went pale when we told him.
“I should’ve warned you,” he said, his voice breaking. “I didn’t want my past touching you.”
But it had.
We filed a police report. The school pulled the security footage.
Victor had been circling the entrance for two days.
