"Dad, are you okay? You look tired. You shouldn’t push yourself too hard."
Sylvester’s worried voice cut through Sergio’s thoughts the mont they stepped out of Cairo’s hospital room.
Sergio blinked, only then realizing that his eldest son had been subtly supporting him by the elbow as they walked.
"I’m fine."
He gently removed Sylvester’s hand from his arm.
"I can still live a few more decades. Don’t treat like an old man." he joked lightly.
But Sylvester wasn’t convinced.
"Dad, stop pretending. You’ve been trembling since earlier. You might fool Cairo, but I’m your son. I know you’re not okay—especially after seeing Sylvia." His voice softened. "You miss her, don’t you?"
Sergio froze.
The weakness he had been trying so hard to hide finally pressed down on him.
The look in Sylvia’s eyes earlier... it wasn’t the gaze of a child longing for her father’s affection. It was the look of a daughter who wanted nothing to do with him.
A daughter who had already closed the door he never had the courage to open.
He turned to his sons. Sylvester and Stephenson were watching him, eyes filled with concern he knew Sylvia no longer had for him.
Her gaze held no fear, no longing only distance. Quiet, cold distance.
Unlike his sons, she had no reason left to stay. Unlike his sons, she had every reason to walk away again.
"Dad? Why did you stop? Is sothing hurting?" Sylvester pressed.
Sergio knew Sylvia weighed heavily on both his sons’ minds too.
Especially Sylvester—he had never treated Sylvia as an outsider. Not like him.
Maybe, deep down, his sons blad him for what she had beco.
"Or... do you want to talk to Sylvia—"
"Am I really a bad father?"
The question slipped out before Sergio could stop himself.
Silence.
Stephenson glanced at him, expression blank but brutally honest.
"Nope," Stephenson said. "You’re not a bad father. But you weren’t a loving father either."
Sylvester winced. "W-well... you were never a bad father to . But... you beca a bad father to Sylvia."
"Right." It was the only word Sergio could manage.
He walked ahead, hearing them scramble to catch up.
"B-but you’re trying now, Dad," Sylvester added awkwardly. "You’re treating Cairo well. And—"
Sergio didn’t respond. He just kept walking.
"Chairman, are you ready?" one of the bodyguards asked as they approached the exit.
Their n dressed in civilian clothing to avoid attention fell into formation.
"Yes. Let’s go."
He stepped outside, climbed into the waiting car, and slipped back into the cold expression expected of the Lincolm family head.
Inside, however, his thoughts were anything but cold.
Earlier in the Hospital,Sergio never imagined he would soday stand in a hospital hallway staring at the daughter he once failed... and at the granddaughters who looked at him without fear, without anger, without the weight of the Lincolm na.
Sylvia stood only a few feet away, but the distance between them felt like decades.
Her arms were crossed, her expression guarded, as if every breath she took reminded her of the wounds he carved into her life.
And he deserved every flinch she gave him.
"Grandpa..." Cairo murmured.
Sergio cleared his throat. "Of course I’m here," he said, though the words scraped painfully out of him. "I should have been here sooner. And you, young man... don’t worry about . I can still walk and even run just to see you."
And Sylvia...She watched him with a look that broke him in ways he never thought possible.
Only now, after all these years did he truly understand what she must have felt as a child.
Invisible.
Watching warmth she never received. He shouldn’t be here, her eyes said.
But she didn’t tell him to leave. Not yet. Not when it ca to her children.
------
Twenty Years Earlier....
He rembered the day he t her mother.
Synthia.
Radiant. Smart. Bold.
She walked into his life carrying light at a ti when everything inside him was sinking.
His wife was always busy with their businesses, leaving him with two young sons. Their marriage lacked warmth, he respected her, but his love for her was never enough—and it certainly wasn’t enough to keep him faithful.
Then Synthia appeared.
A translator for one of their overseas partners. She’s sharp-witted, warm, alive.
Loneliness made him weak. Her warmth made him reckless.
And he fell.
Their relationship was secret. He insisted on secrecy. She accepted it, though he saw the hurt behind her smile.
When she told him she was pregnant, the world he thought he had rebuilt cracked.
An illegitimate child.
A scandal.
A betrayal to his wife.
A threat to the Lincolm na.
A reminder of his own weakness.
But the real reason he hesitated was uglier...
He was terrified of loving again. Terrified of responsibility. Terrified of ruining his already fragile reputation.
So he left Synthia alone.
He sent money, dical care, everything except his presence—except his na.
When Sylvia was born, he visited once.
She was tiny, soft, quietly curious.
She had Synthia’s eyes... but the shape..The shape was his.
Holding her terrified him. Because loving her ant risking pain again.
And then his wife found out.
She threatened to leave with their sons.
Threatened to expose Synthia and the baby to the public. Threatened to destroy the lives of the two people he was already failing.
So he walked away.
Still, he didn’t know if he’d truly been trying to protect Synthia and their daughter...or simply taking the coward’s escape.
Years passed. His wife died of cancer.
Then ca the call.
Synthia was also gone and died with the sa cancer.
"She wanted you to know she didn’t bla you." they said.
Those words destroyed him.
"Her daughter keeps asking when her mother is coming back."
Those words broke him completely.
He cried for the first ti in years.
The next day, he went to the orphanage.
Sylvia was outside, hands dirty from playing in the soil, laughing despite the grief she didn’t understand.
"Sylvia... you’re Sylvia, right?"
She looked up, hopeful and scared.
He wanted to kneel. To tell her everything. To apologize for every year he stole from her.
But he hesitated.
And in that hesitation—he failed her again.
"From now on, you’ll live with ." he said stiffly.
Cold. Detached. Wrong.
Her eyes flickered with fragile hope.
Then he shattered it the mont he brought her to the Lincolm Estate.
"I am your biological father."
She flinched.
And he never forgot her First Day in that cold house.
He should have warned his sons. Prepared a room. Prepared himself.
Instead, he arrived unannounced, unprepared, unsure.
The house froze.
"Dad... is she the child Mom talked about? Your daughter from another woman?" Sylvester asked sharply.
Sergio felt ti stop.
"Yes," he said. "She is your sister."
Sylvia’s eyes widened with a flicker of hope.
But Sylvester’s next words crushed it.
"Didn’t Mom ask you not to bring her here?"
Sylvia’s shoulders tensed.
And Sergio’s heart cracked under the weight of his own failure.
He wanted to defend her.
But he didn’t know how.
So he did nothing—again.
And so the years of Silence continued....
At the dinner table, she sat small and rigid, trying not to breathe wrong. Instead of guiding her gently, he hid behind cold instructions.
"Sit up straight."
"Don’t embarrass the family."
"Speak only when spoken to."
But what he really ant was...
Please don’t be afraid. I’m trying, even if I don’t know how.
But she only heard the coldness.
She grew quieter. Smaller. More invisible.
Not because she wanted to but because he made her that way.
There were many tis he failed her. Many tis he made her feel like a shadow, an outsider.
And then one evening...
He spoke with Sylvester outside her room.
"Stephenson knows more than she ever will."
He was frustrated at himself, not her—
but she heard it.
When he found her crying, his voice ca out cold.
"Stop crying."
But what he ant was...
Please don’t cry because of .
But the damage was done.
She bit her lip until it bled.
And he walked away.
Coward again.
Then her sixteenth birthday ca....
He had planned everything.
Her favorite flowers. Her childhood desserts. Music from old records.
But he never told her it was for her.
So she sat there alone...thinking she didn’t even belong at her own party.
When he asked why she wasn’t socializing, she whispered.
"I... I’m bored."
He knew she was lying. He knew she was hurting.
But instead of comforting her, he stabbed her with the worst words.
"Stop disappointing ."
Her eyes shattered.
And with them—the last thread holding her to him.
She ran away that night.
She never ca back.
---
Back to the Present — Outside the Hospital Earlier...
Seeing her now—
Confident. Strong. Loved by her own children was beautiful and devastating.
She beca everything he never helped her beco.
And he beca exactly what she had learned to survive without.
"Sylvia..." His voice trembled.
She stiffened but didn’t look away.
"You look... happy," he wanted to say. "And I’m... glad. Truly."
But he couldn’t. He was afraid she would think he was mocking her.
Her jaw clenched. Her silence was louder than any scream.
"I was a coward," he whispered. "To you. To your mother. To myself."
Her throat tightened, but she stayed silent.
"I know I lost my place in your life. I don’t expect forgiveness. I don’t deserve it."
He breathed shakily.
"I only ca because... I want to et the children you love so much."
For the first ti in his life, Sergio looked at Sylvia not as a burden, not as a stain on his past but as the daughter he should have protected.
The daughter he failed.
The daughter who survived him.
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