“Come get your worthless daughter and take her back,” my mother-in-law shouted my father as I lay broken at the bottom of the stairs after my husband shoved me down. “Your family will answer for it if she has even a scratch,” was the sole warning Dad offered her. They had no notion who my father really was, so they made fun of him.

“Your father retained me as his lawyer forty-five minutes ago.

I looked at him, eyes wide in disbelief.

“My father hired you?I asked, scarcely able to take in his statement.

My dad was a quiet man who lived in a modest neighbourhood in Ohio.

He had a small pension, and was content to spend his days tending his garden.

To the best of my knowledge, he had spent his whole career pushing papers around for the government.

Gabriel opened his briefcase and laid it down on the side table.

“What did your father do before he went on retirement?“You asked me right out,” said Gabriel.

I answered truthfully, “He said he wrote compliance reports.

For the first time since he’d come into my bay, Gabriel almost smiled.

“Rachel, your father was head of the Federal Bureau of Organised Financial Crimes and Special Prosecutions.”

I was stunned, and for a moment the physical pain in my chest went away.

Gabriel continued talking, without batting an eye.

He went after corrupt judges and powerful politicians and rich executives,” Gabriel said.