Chapter 3 - The Gaslighting Begins
By the time David woke up the next morning in their quiet apartment, his phone was practically melting from notifications.
There were forty-two missed calls and over a hundred text messages from various relatives.
He brewed a pot of strong black coffee and sat at the kitchen island to read the digital assault.
His aunt's texts were a chaotic mix of furious demands and manipulative guilt trips.
"How dare you send the police to our house on Thanksgiving weekend!" she wrote.
"Valerie was crying all night, you hit a woman, you are a monster!"
Another text from his uncle read, "Drop the charges right now, or you are cut out of the will forever."
David let out a dark, humorless laugh.
They still thought money and family guilt could control him.
He took screenshots of every single threatening message and forwarded them to the high-powered family lawyer he had hired online at 3:00 AM.
He didn't bother replying to a single relative.
Instead, he walked into Leo's bedroom and found his son awake, quietly playing with a toy dinosaur.
The swelling on Leo's lip had gone down, but the bruising had turned a nasty shade of purple.
David knelt beside the bed and smiled warmly.
"How are you feeling this morning, my brave guy?" he asked.
"I'm okay, Daddy," Leo mumbled, though he kept his head down.
David knew the emotional scars would take much longer to heal than the physical ones.
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He picked up his phone and blocked every number associated with his toxic bloodline.
The silence that followed was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.
