Chapter 1 - The Boy Scrubbing In The Dark
I opened the laundry room door and found my sixteen-year-old son washing clothes with his bare hands in freezing water.
For several seconds, I couldn’t move.
Lucas stood under the dim yellow light, his torn gray T-shirt hanging loosely from his thin frame. His arms were tense as he scrubbed someone else’s clothes in an ice-cold bucket while the washing machine beside him spun with a full load that clearly wasn’t his.
“Lucas…”
My voice came out quieter than I expected.
“Why are you doing this?”
He froze.
Not because he was surprised I was there.
Because he was afraid.
He lowered his eyes and kept rubbing the fabric between his hands.
“They went to Miami,” he whispered.
The words barely left his mouth.
“They left me here.”
I stared at him.
For the past two weeks, I thought Lucas had been distant because he was angry with me.
I thought he was acting like a typical teenager.
I never imagined he was hiding something like this.
“Who left you here?”
He didn’t answer.
That silence hurt more than any explanation.
I stepped closer and grabbed his wrist gently.
“Lucas, look at me.”
He pulled back.
That was when I noticed the way he protected his arm.
Like he was hiding an injury.
I slowly rolled up his sleeve.
And everything inside me stopped.
Bruises.
Scratches.
Deep marks across his skin.
My son had been hurt.
And he had been hiding it from me.
At that moment, the anger I felt wasn’t loud.
It was colder than that.
It was the kind of anger that made my hands shake while my voice stayed calm.
“Who did this to you?”
Lucas looked away.
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And that told me there was a story he was terrified to tell.
📖 Chapter 2 reveals why Lucas stayed silent and the first lie Gabriel discovers inside his own home. 👇
