Slowly, he stood. He looked older, the lines around his eyes etched deeper than they’d been twenty minutes earlier. He wrapped a paper towel around his bleeding thumb and turned to his daughter.

“I failed you,” Robert said, his voice dropping an octave, stripped of its usual warmth. “I failed you by fixing every mistake you ever made. I paid your rent.

I bought your cars. I smoothed over your disasters. And because of that, you grew up believing you could set the world on fire just to keep yourself warm.”

“Dad…” Madison’s voice cracked, the anger gone, replaced by sudden panic.

“You stole from me,” Robert continued, tone dead and hollow. “You violated Laura’s home. You tried to destroy my marriage. And you broke the only thing of my grandfather’s I had left.”

He pointed a shaking finger at the front door.