When I pushed back, Derek immediately raised his voice, a cold sneer spreading across his face.
"Fine. Since you refuse to admit it, let's bring your son-in-law here and settle this face to face."
He pulled out his phone as if to make a call, turning to address the crowd at the same time.
"He doesn't have money, sure, but the way he treats my sister is the real deal."
"Are you really saying money matters more than my sister's happiness?"
The onlookers started piling on, urging me to come clean.
"Just tell us where you hid your daughter. If you're willing to admit you were wrong and hand her over, maybe there's still a chance to fix this."
I looked at the sea of deceived faces in front of me and pressed my lips together, saying nothing.
It wasn't time yet.
A few minutes later, a man in his thirties shoved his way through the crowd, panting hard, and appeared before us.
The moment he saw me, his knees buckled and he dropped to the ground with a heavy thud, kneeling right at my feet.
"Please, ma'am, I'm begging you. Let Milly go."
"I've searched everywhere these past few days. I can't find her. I'm losing my mind."
He lifted his head to look at me. His eyes were shot through with red, his voice raw and desperate.
"If you'll just give Milly back to me, I'll hand over every cent I have. I won't keep a single dollar."
The crowd erupted. The looks they threw my way dripped with contempt.
They were all convinced I'd hidden my daughter, hurt my daughter, for money.
I kept my eyes lowered and said nothing.
When Rupert Chavez saw I wasn't going to respond, he stayed on his knees, dragged a hand across his tear-streaked face, and began to tell the story, voice cracking, of how he and my daughter had "met, grown close, and fallen in love."
"Milly and I met last summer."
"She was walking through an alley by herself when a group of drunks started harassing her. I rushed in and pulled her out."
His eyes reddened as he spoke.
"They stabbed me for it. One knife wound. I nearly died saving her."
He lifted his shirt. A long, ugly scar twisted across his abdomen, raised and jagged, stretching from one side to the other.
Gasps rippled through the crowd. The way people looked at Rupert shifted, softening with sympathy.
"After that, Milly started coming to see me, taking care of me. The more time we spent together, the more we fell for each other."
His voice climbed higher, more frantic, tears streaming down his face without stopping.
"I love Milly with everything I have. I want to build a life with her. So why are you tearing us apart? Why did you hide her from me?"
"Please, ma'am. I'm begging you. Just give her back to me."
Every person in that crowd was moved.
The hostility that had already been aimed at me caught fire. The insults grew louder, uglier, sharper than before.
"How can you be so heartless? This young man nearly died for your daughter, and you're keeping them apart?"
"Is money really all you care about? He's offering you everything he has, and that's still not enough?"
"Hand your daughter over! Stop ruining two young people's happiness. What you're doing is disgusting."
The abuse was still swirling around me when Derek suddenly stepped forward, his voice punching through the noise so everyone could hear.
"Mom, you can't take it out on my sister just because you never got your own happiness."
He stared at me, his expression twisted with anguish.
"I know you still haven't accepted the fact that Dad divorced you. I know you've been carrying that anger around inside. But my sister is innocent!"
