Entertainment Circle15 min read
"You Took My Child. Now Tell Me Who You Really Are."
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"I'll say hello and smile," I told myself as Beckett steered me toward the cluster of men with too much drink and too much money.
"Annika, meet Mr. Deacon," Beckett said, and the man with the big belly reached for my hand like it belonged to a prize.
"Nice to meet you," I said, and smiled slow.
"You're even prettier than the papers said," Deacon Singh slurred, and his hand found my hip.
"Back off," I said, cold as a glass. Beckett laughed nervously and lifted his drink.
I moved through them the way I used to—soft steps, practiced charm. Years ago, my face opened doors. Now I used it to keep the lights on.
"Annika," a voice said from across the room.
I turned. He stood by the doorway in black, taller than I remembered, clean and cold. Griffith Diaz. The room moved slow for a beat. His eyes slid across me like a knife.
"Showtime?" Beckett whispered. He nudged me forward.
I went to the bar, traded a joke, took a drink. Everything felt like acting, and in this town, acting is survival.
When I excused myself for the washroom, the door was pushed open and the lock clicked.
"You're in the wrong bathroom," I said when I saw him reflected in the mirror.
"Are you the same girl who left me?" Griffith asked. His voice was smooth and fake-calm.
"I moved," I said. "Names change. People don't always stay the same."
He smiled like he enjoyed the bait. Then his knee pressed at my thigh. "So cheap now," he said, and his hand moved.
I bit down on the last of my patience. I fought. He was rough. He was faster.
After, I stood by the sink in a dress that felt torn from me, the mirror reflecting a face I barely recognized.
"Tomorrow, come by my office," he said, slick and useless as a threat. He flicked a card onto the counter: just his name, Griffith Diaz.
I left the washroom and let the noise swallow me. The card burned in my pocket.
At home, the video call lit up. "Mommy!" January's little face filled my screen. Her hair was a messy halo. My heart dropped warm and heavy.
"Hey, munchkin," I said, my voice soft meant for her. "Are you being good?"
"Yes! Grandma made cookies," she said. Then, small and fierce, "When you come back?"
"I will, baby," I lied without meaning to. I held her image until sleep buckled me down.
Next day I went to the glass lobby of his building with Beckett and the card burned against my palm.
"A woman waiting?" the receptionist asked.
"Just tell him I'm here," I said.
"You can wait," she said, and I sat. I watched them move like chess pieces. Then Delilah Burns swept past wearing red and a crown.
"Is that Delilah?" Beckett mouthed. "She is gorgeous."
Delilah smiled at the room. Her mother, Ute Adams, trailed like a cape.
They walked straight to the elevator. I did not leave my seat. When Delilah saw me, she paused and swept me with a look like a challenge.
"Hi, it's been a long time," she said, all warmth and sharp edges. "When did you come back?"
"I just got in," I said.
"Griffith, have you seen her? She said you'd help," Delilah said, and she stepped close to my face like a cat.
"I didn't see her," Griffith said, and his voice passed over me like winter wind.
Delilah took my hand in the elevator and told a story about family and loyalty. She leaned on him, soft and mutual. He listened the same way men listen when they own something.
In Griffith's office, Karl Matsumoto, his assistant, showed me a castoff chair and a smile.
"Beckett said you'd be perfect for the palace concubine," Karl said. "Just come by for a reading."
"Thank you," I said. I left thinking: palace concubine. A role inside a role. A small part with a big end.
On the curb I found the card in my pocket. Griffith's name read like a dare.
That night Delilah came to the dressing room and smiled her sugar smile.
"You really shouldn't have come back," she said, and folded her hands like a child asking for a toy.
"I didn't come to take anything from you," I said. "Are you the sister everyone talks about?"
"Of course," she said. Her tone said I already lost. "But if you want, I'll tell my assistant to arrange something for you."
"Thanks," I said. Her meaning hung in the air.
Backstage, people whispered. "She came to steal a role," one woman said. "She's trouble."
"I've had trouble," I told nobody.
They shoved me onto the set as the palace concubine. The costume smelled of old fabric.
"Cut!" the director, Wesley Ribeiro, yelled. "Annika—" He did not finish. He wanted to look irritated.
Delilah watched the crew take up positions and smiled. Then she walked to the door and screamed like someone struck her.
"Someone," she cried. "She hit me!"
Griffith burst in. Her hand was over her cheek, staged just right. Griffith slapped me. The palm hit my face hard and public, and all the cameras made the sound eternal.
"Get out," he said. "Don't you dare touch my girl."
My cheek burned not from the slap but from a cold that had nothing to do with skin. Beckett's mouth moved. He looked scared.
I left the set while whispers grew teeth. I did not argue. That night I scrubbed dirt from my blouse in the sink. I let my hands soak until the water was cold.
Beckett called. "Annika, don't let it crush you. I put up some pictures."
"Pictures?" I asked.
"Fake shots," he said. "You and Griffith. Run them. Let them think what they want."
"Okay," I said. "Do it."
We fed one kiss photo. The internet chewed and spat and fed again. Suddenly people who hated me loved me. Suddenly I was news.
Griffith heard the rumors. He had a look like a man tasting poison and wanting more.
One night he called. "Paper? Come to Room One at Paper House," he said. His voice was flat.
I went. The place smelled like old money and new sin. A man named Deacon introduced me to a friend who wanted to "invest in talent." The man touched my hand like he wanted to test it.
Griffith flirted without looking like flirt. He told jokes with his head tilted. He left the room once, and when I went to the bathroom I saw damned history: a hand moved rough and ugly.
He pushed me into a narrow space. "You like used men, don't you?" he said. "You always did."
I screamed. Someone downstairs heard it and came running. I left with my dress torn. The card in my pocket cracked in two.
The next morning I saw a news item that my kiss photos had been taken down. Someone was cleaning the mess. The net whined and closed like a trap. I had wanted attention. I had not wanted this.
A week later, on the quay, I was meant to meet Ricardo De Luca, the elder of the two brothers. He had the face of a man who liked to own things. He had once tried to cross a line with me. He'd been pushed away.
He sat across from me and offered to help.
"I can make you known," he said. "I can move fate for you. For a price."
"What's the price?" I asked.
"You become the face I bring out," he said. "Appear with me. The press will eat it. You will be safe."
"Safe how?" I asked.
He smiled the smile of a man who thinks of his bank account like weather. "Protected."
I thought of January's small hands. I thought of Beckett's trust. I thought of the taste of blood in my mouth.
"Deal," I said.
He took care of petty things. A program. A small endorsement. A photo with him in a suite that flashed like coin. People noticed.
But someone else was watching—Griffith.
One evening, between dinners and a river that smelled of rain, Ricardo pressed his face close to mine and kissed me. I pushed him away.
"Do not mistake me," I said. "I don't sleep for favors."
He laughed. "Still proud," he said. "Good. Pride is useful for a woman who wants to fight."
Then he called in favors. A model, Colette Soares, came forward and accused Beckett of misconduct. The headlines shredded him. The police were called. Beckett lay in hospital with a broken arm and a hope in his eyes.
I stared at my phone. The world stung with voices that wanted to cut us to pieces.
"Who did this?" I asked Ricardo.
He shrugged. "The circle moves. People make choices."
"It will hurt Beckett," I said. "He is my friend."
"Then fix it," he said.
I could not fix things without losing everything.
I wanted my daughter safe. I wanted work. I wanted the sick sense of being owned to stop.
So I watched. I learned. I traded favors. I let Ricardo make the calls for a price other than my skin.
Months into the scramble, something worse happened.
"Mommy!" my phone screen popped.
"January?" I said.
"I lost my bear," she sniffed.
"Where are you?"
"In the big store."
A cold bucket of panic clanged the inside of my ribs.
"I'll come," I said, and I drove until the city split into neon and rain.
At the supermarket, carts bumped and the air smelled of fruit. I pushed through aisles and saw a small cart with a teddy bigger than the child's arms. My breath stopped.
A man stood by the juice stand holding her like a prize. He looked at her like he wanted to memorize every small freckle. It was Griffith.
I lunged.
"Give me my daughter!" I screamed.
He looked at me with a face like a tombstone. "She's better with me for a moment," he said. "You run into trouble. I will keep her safe."
"Who are you to take a child?" I shouted.
"You are the woman I loved who left," he said. "I know her tricks."
"She is my daughter," I said. "She is not a tool."
"Then sign here and leave the child to me," he said in the same tone someone might use to talk about a dead dog.
I pulled out the small sealed bag I carried like an amulet. Inside was a lock of hair I had kept from years ago. I held it up like evidence.
"Do you know what this is?" I said. "I kept it because one day I might need to prove..."
He grabbed the bag. "A test will tell," he said.
"Test what? You think you are her father?"
He didn't answer with words. He watched January—his brow softened for a second I saw like a crack in stone.
"Please," I said, half beg, half dare.
He laughed, dark. "You always thought me soft," he said. "Come to my place. We'll see."
I went. I left my daughter with the woman at the register's watch like a leash. I drove the worst ten minutes of my life.
When I arrived at the small house we used to share — the "Mantle" — my legs shook.
He handed back the bag. "You kept it," he said.
"Are you her father?" I said.
He inhaled like someone who regrets every earlier day. "I might be," he said. "Or I might not. But if I am—"
He didn't finish. He thrust a phone at me, showing a private text chain.
"Who did you make deals with?" I demanded.
"You traded your dignity for coin," he said. "You used men to come back."
"Better that than sell my soul," I said.
He laughed like a blade. "You sold nothing. You hid things. You lied."
"We all lie," I said. "You lied when you left prison and let me go. You called me cheap. You gave me bruises and used me like a toy."
"I didn't," he said, and the word sounded smaller than the room.
"Did you ever hear me?" I asked. "Did you ever ask me why I left?"
He stood there like a man with no voice.
"Three years ago," I said, "I found out I was pregnant. I had a choice. I chose the child over a promise. I thought you'll be there. You weren't."
He closed his eyes. "You said you used someone," he said. "You said you chose money. You said you left me for a future."
"I chose a future," I said. "For a child. For a warm bed. For a life."
He touched the hair in the bag like a stranger. "Bring her here," he said.
I left January with Ute Adams' people at the airport lounge? No. I left her in the safe hands of a woman we both trusted. I drove back.
We tested.
He sat in a sterile office and watched the lab come to life. His face was dark. The woman reading results looked at the paper, then at us.
"Mr. Diaz," she said softly. "This is a match."
The room tilted. I felt air thin.
"You ask 'who is the father?'" she said. "Here is your answer."
He got up. He paced. He came to me like a man coming to shore after a storm.
"You kept her," he said. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I didn't want you to feel tied," I said. "Because I didn't want her to be a rope around your ankle."
"You should have told me," he said. That was the softest sound I had heard from him.
"You looked at me with disgust," I said. "You said I was cheap. You said I was a thing."
"I said terrible things," he said. "I was full of myself when I had nothing. Now I have everything and I am emptier."
He put his hand on my shoulder. It felt like ice and dust. I did not pull away.
"I am her father," he said. "And I am sorry."
He left. He returned like a shell of his old pride. He did not come to beg for my heart. He came with a plan: to end Delilah and her perfect life before it started.
The engagement party was set to be an oak-and-gold fantasy. The hall was full of flash and flowers. Delilah shone like someone made of light.
"Are you ready?" Beckett asked me. "We can leave. This is dangerous."
"I'm going in," I said. "If this is an ending for us, let the world watch."
He found me backstage and handed me a mic and a face. Beckett's eyes held fierce love.
Onstage Griffith took the mic. "Delilah," he said, and the world leaned.
"I asked you here because I want to ask you to marry me," he said. The audience cheered. Delilah looked like a queen receiving crowns.
I stood in the wings, January on my hip. I had not meant to bring her. But you cannot protect what you hide.
"Annika," Karl said, worried.
"I will stand," I said.
Griffith slid a ring out. I heard the cameras click like the sea.
"Will you marry me?" he said.
"Yes," Delilah said. "Yes, of course."
Griffith slid the ring on. His cheek had a small ridge, a bruise from nervous habit.
Then I stepped forward.
"Wait," I said, voice cutting through like a bell. "I have something to say."
The crowd hushed.
"Annika?" Delilah said, surprised.
"You will notice this woman is wearing jewels paid by your mother," I said. "Ute Adams, the woman in the back, do you want the truth told now or later?"
Ute's smile flickered. She barely moved.
I unbuttoned my coat and pulled from my pocket the sealed bag with the hair. I walked up to the front and held it up.
"This child," I said, "is January Lane. She is my daughter. Her father is Griffith Diaz."
The murmurs swelled like wind.
"What are you saying?" Delilah sputtered, red as a flamed rose.
Griffith said nothing. His face had become white.
"She is ours," I said, and I turned to the hundred bright cameras. "These people plotted to ruin anyone who got in their way. They used a model to accuse my man. They paid journalists. They set fires. All to make a clean house so their daughter could marry unopposed."
Flash cameras popped. Ute's face drained.
"You have proof," Karl said quietly.
"I have a lab report right here," I said. I held the paper. "And I have witnesses. The model Colette admits she was paid. The buys and lies are on record. And the man who thought a child's love can be taken is here to explain himself."
Griffith's jaw worked. He had two roads: deny the truth and collapse, or stand and own it.
He turned to Delilah.
"You know what I learned?" he said, voice heavy. "I learned I can be wrong. I learned I can be cruel. I learned I lost what mattered."
Delilah's eyes filled, not with pity, but with anger and shame.
"You used me," Griffith said. "You and your mother used me to make your life easier. You took my name and gave me a bed of thorns."
Ute rose like a woman about to issue an order.
"Griffith—" she began.
He stepped forward and slapped her.
The sound hit the room like someone throwing a stone. Ute staggered, stunned.
"No," he said. "Not another word."
A gasp ran through the room. Delilah's eyes widened to saucers. Ute's face burned red.
"You took her," I said, pointing at Delilah. "You stood by when men touched her. You let lies make a home. Now tell me: what did you think you could buy, Delilah? My child? My shame?"
Delilah's throat bobbed. Her hands fluttered uselessly.
"You think you can step into my life and pick up a child like an accessory?" I said. "You have no idea what this woman gave."
Delilah cried out something sharp and cruel, but people were no longer on her side. The crowd watched a woman fall from grace on public stage.
Griffith moved to the microphone. "I am the father," he said plainly. "I failed. I hurt. I made awful choices. I am sorry."
"Sorry does not fix what you did," I said.
"It can start," he answered. "I will do whatever it takes to prove I can be a father."
Delilah pushed forward. "You ruined me!" she said. "You humiliated me!"
"By telling a truth?" a reporter snapped.
Silence. Then whispers turned into shouts.
The party was a mess. Reporters screamed. Cameras hunted Ute's face. Security tried to form a ring around Delilah. Griffith let them not.
Later, when the hall was empty and the flowers had drooped, I sat on the edge of the stage with January in my lap. Her eyes were big and trusting.
"You are safe," I told her.
Footsteps came. Griffith appeared with a worn coat. He sat at a distance.
"I did not know," he said softly. "I thought I had iron proof. I was wrong then, cruel after. I wanted to erase you from memory because I was angry and didn't know how to hold the truth."
"I kept this bag," I said. "I kept the hair. I kept your name as a knife."
"Why?" he asked.
"Because I wanted to be sure I could choose," I said. "You were not the only one who could walk away."
He smiled, a slow, small thing. "Will you let me try to be here?"
"Words are cheap," I said.
"I know," he said. "So I will show you. No grand shows. Small things. Jan's bandage. A story at bedtime. A little field of blue flowers you liked. Proof, not promises."
We sat there, the two of us far from the cameras that had watched everything. It was quiet but not safe. It felt like a beginning.
The weeks after the party were messy in a way that made me tired and fierce. The press circled. Delilah and Ute faded into rumors. Ricardo's help bought me roles that were still small, but real. Beckett's name cleared when Colette admitted to being paid. The papers ran retractions. The city kept turning.
Griffith started showing up at January's preschool drop-offs. He learned playlists. He learned to tie shoes. He was terrible at the first, clumsy at the second, but he tried.
One night I was in the kitchen making noodles when my phone buzzed.
"Come downstairs," Griffith texted. "There is something you need to see."
I went down. He stood in the yard where years ago he had planted a small patch of forget-me-nots. It was early; dew made the flowers shine like small blue coins.
"Do you remember?" he said.
"I remember being a fool," I said.
He bent and picked a small sprig. He held it to me like an offering.
"I planted these for you once," he said. "I thought if I planted something it would make me better. I didn't know how to be better. But I started again. For her."
January came out and ran to him like a sunbeam. He knelt and opened his arms. She leapt and clung like the child trusts weather.
I watched them.
"I will not be sold another apology," I said.
He nodded. "I don't ask for instant trust. I ask for a chance."
I looked at my daughter, and then at the man who had hurt me and who might have saved us both.
"A chance," I said. "Small and honest. No grand promises."
He smiled. "Small and honest."
He kissed the top of my daughter's head. January squealed and ran back to me.
Months went on. I acted in the palace drama and people noticed. I gave an interview where I said simple truths: "I lost a lot. I made choices to survive. I am learning again."
"Will you marry him?" people asked.
"I don't know," I said on camera. The cameras recorded what they wanted, but I was no longer trying to make them write the story.
Griffith did not propose with fireworks. He helped January practice a song. He replaced the broken swing in the park. He fixed the heater in our apartment when winter came early.
One night, after January fell asleep with my hand still in her hair, Griffith leaned against the doorway.
"Annika," he said. "Do you trust me?"
Trust is slow work. It is a careful ladder of small steps.
"Some," I said.
He smiled like sunlight through blinds. "Then some is good," he said. "I will build on that."
He was not perfect. He had nights when the old rage rose up and words cut. He had days when the cameras found us and twisted things. We argued. We made up. The city watched and waited.
Then came a day when Delilah's own choices made news. A recording leaked—her mother and Deacon planning a smear. The public was swift. No one clapped for her. She left quietly.
The court cases that followed were messy and slow. Ute Adams got a fine, paid with jewels. Deacon went quiet.
I stayed quiet. I did my work. I loved my little girl. I let the world have its noise.
One night, at the small house that had once been our refuge, I found Griffith standing at the gate with a small wooden box in his hand.
"I made something," he said.
"What?" I asked.
Inside was a small ring, simple and unadorned, not the flashy thing they would have chosen for Delilah. It fit like a promise.
"I can't make you forget the past," he said. "I can't buy your forgiveness. But I can offer this: a life, quietly built. Will you accept the slow way?"
I looked at January asleep on the couch and at the man who had both ruined and saved us.
I took the ring. "No ceremony," I said. "No grand dance. We will be two adults and a child. Honest work. Truth when it is hard."
He nodded. "No grand dance."
He slid the ring on my finger. It was small. It fit perfectly.
We did not stand on a balcony or in front of a press. We had no orchestra. We had three people and a small radio that played an old song.
"Will you keep your lock of hair?" he asked, half-pleading, half-laughing.
I pulled the sealed bag from my pocket and handed it to him.
"Keep it," I said. "But don't use it like a knife."
He put it in the box with the ring.
Years later, when people asked about the moment that changed everything, I would not tell them of the big slaps or the printed lies or the way a party fell apart. I would tell them this: that a child taught a man he had a heart.
"Do you regret?" people asked him later, on a show that had once loved to tear us apart.
"Every day," he said simply. "And every day I try not to make the same mistake twice."
I watched January run through flowers that were not forget-me-nots anymore but wild and bright. She was small and fierce and full of music.
"Mommy," she said once, hands sticky with jam. "Is Daddy nice now?"
"He is trying," I said. I kissed her sticky hand.
Being loved is not a clean line. It is a messy, brave granary of small acts.
Once, someone told me men who love do anything. I have seen men do the toughest thing: change their pattern.
"Will you always love me?" Griffith asked once, quiet and honest.
"I will," I said. "But love is not enough. I want respect. I want you to be kind when no one looks."
He bowed in a small, private way.
"Deal," he said.
We kept a tiny garden. We kept little promises. We kept the sealed bag until one day January asked why.
"Because," I said, "it was the start."
She thought that was enough.
Outside, the city pulsed. Inside, there was a dinner burned by small fingers and a child's laugh. January hopped onto Griffith's lap and tried to help him eat his soup.
"You took my child," I told him once at the start, when the world was a different and harsher place.
He looked at me and then at our daughter, and he answered true.
"I did," he said. "And I will never take her away again."
I watched them and listened. I had the ring on my hand and a name on my tongue. I had scars and a small garden and a child's sticky hands.
We walked forward like people do: imperfect, slow, and sometimes brave.
The End
— Thank you for reading —