And I want to tell you how strange that silence felt, because my father had spent my entire childhood teaching me that going quiet meant I had surrendered.

That silence was the white flag, the loss, the moment you gave him the win.

He was wrong about that, the same way he was wrong about the deed and the trust and the company and the daughter he thought he could drag across a floor.

Sometimes silence isn’t surrender at all.

Sometimes it just means the facts are already moving against the other person, and they don’t need one more word from you to finish the job.

Chapter 13 — The Paramedics