He walked toward us slowly, his steps heavy, as if every inch required a massive effort of will.

When he was just a few feet away, he stopped.

He looked at my face, tracing the lines of anger and exhaustion that had settled there over the last year.

He looked at Martina, whose cheeks were wet with fresh tears.

Then, my father did something I had never seen him do in my entire life.

He slowly bent his knees and knelt down on the hard, polished wooden floor of the hallway.

The wealthy, powerful Emiliano Duarte was on his knees before his daughters and his housekeeper.

He did not look up at us immediately.

He kept his head bowed, his hands resting flat on his thighs.

“I have been so blind,” my father whispered, his voice trembling.

“I allowed a monster into this house because I was too weak to face my own grief,” he said.

“I let her push you away,” he continued, a tear falling from his chin onto the floor. “I let her make me believe that you were the ones who were wrong.”