Downstairs, Lucas was at the kitchen table, trying to eat the pancakes Gabriel had made, but Gabriel could hear the fork touching the plate too softly, too carefully, as if the boy was afraid even breakfast might be taken away from him.
For a long moment, Gabriel did nothing.
He had spent years on highways, reading danger in small signs: a swerving trailer, a blown tire, the wrong sound from an engine. Now the same instinct whispered to him from inside his own home.
Something was wrong here.
Not just cruelty.
Not just neglect.
Something planned.
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