Chapter 2 - The Laundromat in the Rain
A heavy, torrential downpour had settled over Mexico City, turning the streets of Northside into rivers of dark, reflecting asphalt.
The glittering towers of the financial district were replaced by cracked sidewalks, rusted corrugated metal roofs, and faded neon signs flickering against the night sky.
Victor’s sleek, armored black Lincoln Navigator pulled up to the curb outside a dimly lit, rundown commercial laundry mat on 14th Street. The exhaust from the old industrial dryers billowed out from rusted vents into the cold night air, smelling of cheap detergent and damp concrete.
Victor sat in the back seat, his hands tightly clasped around Annie’s small, warm hand. Beside him, Brian turned off the engine.
"She’s inside, sir," Brian said softly, looking through the rain-streaked windshield. "She works the shift from 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM."
Victor looked through the glass.
Inside the brightly lit, sterile room, surrounded by dozens of spinning metal washing machines, stood a woman.
Her back was turned. She wore a faded blue apron over a worn gray sweater. Her dark hair, which Victor remembered as a thick, shining cascade that fell to her waist, was pinned up in a loose, hasty bun, streaked with premature threads of silver. She was heaving a heavy canvas basket filled with wet industrial linens into a commercial press, her breath hitching visible as she paused to press a hand against her chest, wincing in obvious pain.
Victor felt a knot choke his throat. He couldn't move. The sheer magnitude of his guilt paralyzed him.
He had lived in a fifteen-million-dollar penthouse. He had flown on private jets. He had drank vintage wine and cursed her name in the quiet hours of the night, believing she had discarded their family for a life of luxury with another man. And all the while, she was lifting fifty-pound baskets of wet laundry at two in the morning to keep a leaky roof over their daughter’s head.
"Dad?" Annie whispered, tugging gently on his sleeve. "Are you scared?"
Victor looked down at his daughter, wiping a stray tear from his eye. "I’m ashamed, Annie. I'm so ashamed."
"Mom misses you," Annie said simply, her innocent voice cutting through his despair. "Every night before I go to sleep, she shows me your picture in her small wooden box. She tells me you were the bravest man she ever met."
Victor’s heart shattered completely.
He unlatched the SUV door and stepped out into the freezing rain, holding Annie under his heavy coat to protect her from the storm. Brian opened the door to the laundromat, the tiny bell above the frame ringing sharply over the loud hum of the spinning dryers.
Catherine didn't turn around immediately. "We're closed for drop-offs until six in the morning," she called out, her voice raspy and exhausted. "You can leave the commercial bags by the front desk."
"Catherine," Victor said.
The sound of his voice hit the small room like an electric shock.
Catherine froze. The heavy wet towel in her hands slipped from her fingers, falling to the concrete floor. Slowly, terrifyingly, as if she were afraid she was hallucinating from exhaustion, she turned around.
Her eyes—wide, hollowed by years of malnutrition and sleeplessness, but still the deep, beautiful hazel Victor had fallen in love with twelve years ago—locked onto him.
Then her eyes moved down to Annie, who was peeking out from beneath Victor’s dark leather coat.
"Annie?" Catherine gasped, her face draining of what little color it possessed. She rushed forward, her hands trembling as she grabbed her daughter, pulling her away from Victor, shielding the girl behind her own fragile body. "Victor... how... how did you find us? What are you doing here?"
Her reaction broke Victor’s heart all over again. She didn't look at him with anger; she looked at him with absolute, terrifying fear—the lingering trauma of the threats Maris’s men had inflicted upon her three years ago.
"Catherine, please," Victor said, his hands raised in a gesture of absolute surrender, tears finally spilling freely down his cheeks, washing away the cold rain on his face. "Don't be afraid. I know. I know everything."
Catherine blinked through her own tears, her breathing shallow and ragged. "What... what do you know?"
"I know about the forged letter," Victor choked out, taking a slow, agonizing step forward, dropping to his knees on the dirty, detergent-stained concrete floor right in front of her. "I know about the security guards my mother hired. I know about the threats against my business. I know you never took a dime, and I know you've been working yourself to death while I lived like a fool."
Catherine stared at him, her body shaking violently. "You... you didn't send those men? You didn't write the divorce papers?"
"I loved you every single day of my life, Catherine!" Victor sobbed, reaching out with trembling hands, touching the hem of her faded apron, not daring to lay a finger on her skin without her permission. "My mother lied to me. She stole the money I sent for you. She told me you left with another man. I spent three years hating myself, hating the world, while you were suffering in the dark!"
Catherine sank to her knees in front of him, the wall of fear finally collapsing into a torrent of deep, agonizing sobs.
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"She said... she said if I ever contacted you," Catherine wept, clutching Annie against her lap, "that she would use her influence to have your business destroyed and put you in prison. She showed me legal papers, Victor. She had judges in her pocket. I couldn't risk your life... I couldn't let her destroy you..."
"She can't touch us anymore, Catherine," Victor said, reaching out and gently gathering both his wife and daughter into his broad, strong arms, holding them as if the world were ending around them. "It's over. I swear on my life, it's over."
