Chapter One Hundred and Ninety Nine - Setting Sullivan Right

Shaking my head in disbelief at the words that's coming out of the mouth of the man sitting opposite me.

"There's something missing here, this is not how this conversation was suppose to go." I spoke softly to myself, but loud enough for my father-in-law to hear my words.

Shrugging nonchalantly, "your wife's more interested in living a life of luxury, spending off mines and your father's money," David Sullivan was saying when I had to cut him off.

"Wait, what?" I asked baffled, "I think you have been getting your information from the wrong people." I butt in harshly, "or you're mistaking my wife for someone else," I lashed out.

Shaking his head with a, I've heard it all mentality, "nope I got it right," David replied, impatiently, directly from the horse's mouth, as they say." Sullivan retorted.

Chuckling angrily, "then the person you're describing to me isn't my wife and she's clearly not your daughter." I stood up staring down at him, restraining myself from dragging him over the table.

"Maybe it's true, her parents did die in a crash when she was five years old and she's indeed an orphan." I started, watching him frown at my words, "maybe the woman my mother shoved down the stairs wasn't her mother." I continued my voice getting softer as I leaned closer to him, his eyes widening in shock.

Fully aware that the guards are watching me. "Maybe her baby brother didn't die when her father's mistress pushed her mother down the stairs. Maybe her baby brother died in the same accident that took her parents life, leaving her to suffer alone with the nightmares in a million dollars penthouse stuck with a stranger, who kept her drugged to keep her safe." I chuckle, as I felt tears starting to trickle down my cheeks, tears I didn't bother to hide.

Smiling sadly, I straightened up, my eyes on the broken man sitting in front of me, eyes widen in shock and disbelief.

"Yes, all I have to do is continue to protect my wife from my mother and the sister she still doesn't know about." I concluded and without a backward glance I walk away, wiping my eyes as I stood in front the iron gate, waiting for the guard to let me out.

Whatever Hailey's father is thinking about her, has my mother's DNA written all over it.

I will make her f**king pay for creating a wall of hatred between David Sullivan for his daughter.

"WAIT! Adian, wait" A voice shouts from across the room.

Turning around to face the voice of a broken and contrite man, wiping his eyes, with a small smile, on his hard rugged features.

"I found it hard to believe my Hailey bear would turn her back on me, in spite of what happened." David Sullivan says, motioning the chair I just vacated. "Please, don't go, Help me understand what is really going on." My father-in-law pleads with a nod at the security guard, who has been keeping his eyes on us the entire time.

As much as I needed to know Hailey came out of the board meeting without a scratch after battling with my mother, I also need to do this, with her father.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled the chair out and sat down staring into the face of a different man. A different man from the one I was speaking to earlier. A man who has seen the light!

The man before me, was excited like a man hearing that the daughter he presumed, dead is now found, alive.

"Tell me, please tell me about my Hailey Bear," my father-in-law smiles encouragingly.

Smiling as I reminisce that first day, happy to tell this story, yet another time to my willing audience.

Leaning forward, my elbows on the table in front of me, "I met Hailey for the first time, two weeks after her twenty first birthday, at a coffee shop." I started describing our very first meeting. observing his eyes flutter from happy to surprise, then to relaxed, one after the next as he listens to everything that transpired since Hailey and I were married.

We aren't allowed to hug inmates, but with tears in his eyes, David asks his guards for a hug just this one time, before I left him at a place where he's facing time for a crime he didn't commit.

When I signed out of the prison, I collected my phone and my pens before walking out to the main gate.

"Mr. Knights?" The guard who was inside the visitation room earlier, stood waiting for me.

I turned to see his outstretched hands in front of me.

Frowning, I reached out and shook his hand.

"Thank you" the guard says politely, grasping my hand tightly.

"Okay?" I responded confused.

Still grasping my hand, he looks briefly behind him. "Mr. Sullivan is genuinely happy for the first time since I met him fifteen years ago." The guard explain, while I nod, trying not to show my confusion.

"Okay" I responded again, wondering where he is going with this.

"Mr. Sullivan has been good to me and my family," he continued and I smiled, happy that my father-in-law, treated the guards kindly, even in lockdown.

"Mr. Sullivan, paid for my siblings education and seeing him smile after you told him his daughter is still searching for him, made him the happiest I have ever seen him. Tonight, I know he's going to sleep peacefully as he await your next visit." The guard, covers my hand with both of his, shaking his head. "Thank you," He nods behind me before I heard the gate open.

Taking out a call card, I placed in his hand after writing my personal number behind it,"See you soon and call me anytime. If I don't answer it, you'll get my wife." I promised, as I walked out of the large iron gate, to meet Bas out in the carpark.

The drive back to the penthouse was in total silence, as a migraine hit me hard.

Bas knew not to ask questions during this time. I laid back on the car seat, with my eyes closed, massaging my head.

Since Bas didn't mention what happened this morning, I didn't ask, because the pain was to intense.

Without making any detours, or rethinking anything that occurred while visiting David, a visit we both decided to keep confidential until David is able to adjust his business, which my mother was in the process of getting David to sign off to his younger daughter, my sister.