Chapter 2 - The Laundromat in the Shadow
The rain had intensified into a heavy downpour over Mexico City’s northern district. High-rise glass towers gave way to cracked pavements, dim streetlights, and rusted iron gates.
Victor’s armored SUV pulled up to the curb of Northside 4th Street. The black metallic paint reflected the flickering neon sign of El Sol Laundromat, a cramped, damp shop sandwiched between a tire repair station and an abandoned bakery.
Brian parked the vehicle, his eyes filled with sorrow in the rearview mirror. "We're here, Mr. Victor."
Victor looked out the window. Through the fogged, cracked glass of the laundromat, he could see a thin woman in a faded apron pushing a heavy basket of wet linens toward an industrial dryer.
His hand shook as he touched the door handle.
For three years, he had lived in an opulent penthouse, drinking sixty-dollar whiskey, convincing himself that Catherine was living comfortably on a beach in South America with another man. He had let his anger fuel his work, turning himself into a ruthless businessman, while the woman who had held his hand when he was broke worked sixteen-hour shifts in a basement laundromat.
"Stay in the car with Brian for a moment, sweetie," Victor whispered to Annie, stroking her wet hair.
"Is Mom going to be okay, Dad?" Annie asked softly. "She promised me we would eat soup tonight."
Victor’s eyes burned with tears. He kissed Annie’s forehead. "Mom is going to be fine. I promise you, Annie. Nobody will ever hurt her again."
Victor opened the car door and stepped out into the rain. He didn't care about his thousand-dollar leather shoes splashing through dirty puddles, nor his silk shirt getting soaked. He pushed open the glass door of the laundromat. The bell chimed softly above his head.
The smell of cheap bleach, humid steam, and detergent filled the air.
The woman pushing the basket stopped. She wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her forearm, coughing weakly into her elbow. Her shoulders were thin, her cheekbones hollow, and dark circles shadowed her eyes. But even under the harsh fluorescent lights, Victor recognized her instantly.
Catherine.
She turned toward the door, preparing to say her automated customer greeting. "Welcome, we're closing in twenty minutes—"
The words died in her throat.
The basket of wet sheets slipped from her hands, thudding onto the linoleum floor.
Catherine stepped backward, her eyes widening in absolute terror. She grabbed the edge of a iron folding table to steady herself.
"Victor..." she whispered, her voice trembling like a leaf in the wind. "How... how did you find me? Please... please don't take her."
Victor took three slow steps forward. Each step felt as though he were dragging fifty pounds of iron. "Catherine..."
"I signed the papers!" Catherine cried out, tears bursting from her eyes as she cowered against the table. She looked terrified, as if she expected a team of lawyers to burst through the door behind him. "I didn't contact you! I stayed away just like your mother wanted! Please, Victor, Annie is all I have left! Don't take my daughter from me!"
Victor stopped in his tracks, feeling as though a blade had been driven into his stomach. She wasn't angry at him. She was terrified of him.
"Catherine, look at me," Victor choked out, dropping to his knees right there on the wet, detergent-covered floor. "Look at my eyes."
Catherine froze, staring at him in complete shock. The powerful, proud Victor Williams—a man who never knelt before anyone—was on his knees before her, crying openly.
"I didn't know," Victor sobbed, covering his face with his hands. "My God, Catherine... I didn't know anything. I thought you abandoned me. I thought you took the money and left with someone else. My mother... she lied to me for three years."
Catherine stared at him, her chest heaving as she fought for air. "You... you didn't send the letters? You didn't order the restraining orders?"
"What letters?!" Victor shouted in agony, looking up at her. "I sent fifty thousand dollars every single month to an account my mother said belonged to you! I thought you were living in luxury! I didn't know she threw you out! I didn't know you were sick! I didn't know Annie was..."
He couldn't even finish the sentence. The image of his daughter reaching into a trash bag outside the hotel cut through his chest like broken glass.
Catherine stepped away from the table, her legs shaking as she approached him. She looked at his suit, drenched in rain, at his tear-stained face, at the genuine, shattering grief in his eyes.
"She... she told me you hated us," Catherine whispered, her voice breaking. "She showed me emails from your account saying that if I ever set foot in Silverspring again, you would have me arrested for extortion."
"I never wrote an email," Victor said, reaching out with a trembling hand, stopping just short of touching her frail wrist. "I spent three years drinking myself to sleep, hating myself because I thought I wasn't enough for you. I spent three years working twenty hours a day so I wouldn't have to go home to an empty house."
Catherine dropped to her knees in front of him. The years of fear, exhaustion, and loneliness seemed to break all at once. She buried her face in his shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably.
Victor wrapped his arms around her frail body, pulling her tight against his chest, feeling every rib through her thin cotton shirt. He squeezed his eyes shut, letting his tears mix with the rain dripping from his hair.
"I'm sorry," Victor wept into her neck. "I'm so sorry, Catherine. I should have looked for you. I should have questioned it. I was so blind... so stupidly blind."
The door chimed again.
Annie stood in the doorway, holding Brian's hand, looking timidly at her parents holding each other on the floor.
Catherine pulled back, looking at her daughter, then at Victor. "She... she was with you?"
"I found her outside the hotel," Victor said softly, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. "She was saving us, Catherine. She brought me back to you."
Catherine reached out, and Annie ran into her arms. The three of them sat on the floor of the laundromat, holding each other as the rain battered the glass outside.
Victor looked up at Brian, who stood near the door, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief.
"Brian," Victor said, his voice cold, steady, and resolute. "Call Dr. Harrison. Tell him to prepare the private wing at St. Jude's Hospital immediately. My wife is being admitted tonight."
"Yes, Mr. Williams," Brian said.
"And Brian?"
May you like
"Sir?"
"Call our head of corporate security," Victor added, standing up and lifting Catherine in his arms as if she weighed nothing. "Tell them to change every lock on the Williams Estate by midnight. If my mother tries to enter, she is to be escorted off the premises by police."
