Chapter 7 - BECAUSE OF YOU
The silence inside the living room became absolute.
Eleanor stood frozen beside the couch, her hands clasped over her mouth, her eyes darting between her daughter and her ex-husband.
Alexander didn't move an inch. His posture remained rigid, but his gray eyes sharpened, focusing entirely on Sofia’s face. "What did she mean, Sofia? Speak clearly."
Sofia looked directly into her father’s eyes, her voice shaking violently as she delivered the words that had haunted her during her desperate flight through the dark streets.
"Carmen looked at me while her women held my arms down," Sofia whispered. "And she said... 'Did you really think a Robles would marry a middle-class girl for love? We didn't choose you because of your mother's condo, Sofia. We chose you because of who your father is.'"
THUD.
The heavy word hung in the air like a physical blow.
Alexander went completely, horrifyingly still. The decorated Colonel—a man who had stood resolute through artillery bombardments, military tribunals, and high-level intelligence briefings—looked as if he had just been struck by lightning.
The color drained slowly from his weathered, tanned face. His strong jaw unlocked, his lips parting slightly as he stared down at his daughter in absolute, speechless shock.
For the first time since he had walked through the front door at 3:35 a.m., Alexander Brooks looked genuinely shaken.
"What?" Eleanor breathed, stepping forward, her hands shaking violently as she grabbed Alexander’s field jacket arm. "Alexander... what does that mean? Why would the Robles family target our daughter because of you? You retired ten years ago!"
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Alexander didn't answer his ex-wife. He didn't even look at her.
His eyes remained locked on Sofia’s bruised face, a dark, terrible realization dawning in the depths of his mind—a realization that connected his classified past to the nightmarish reality his daughter had just endured.
