The first thing Daniel Kofi shattered that morning wasn’t a glass.
It was the calm.
He tore through the house like it had personally betrayed him—yanking drawers open, scattering documents across the floor, flipping folders inside out. Paper flew everywhere, turning the living room into a storm of white panic.
His phone was wedged between his ear and shoulder, his voice sharpening with every passing second.
“It has to be here,” he snapped. “It has to be.”
From the kitchen doorway, Amara watched silently, her hands still damp from rinsing rice. She had learned over the years that Daniel’s stress had teeth. Touch it wrong, and it bit.
Still, she tried.
“Daniel,” she said gently, cautiously, as if approaching a frightened animal. “Let me help. What are you looking for?”
He spun toward her like a fuse had been lit.
“Don’t,” he barked. “Just—don’t.”
Amara froze, standing very still. When anger becomes unpredictable, stillness feels safer than movement.
“I’m going to be late,” Daniel said, shaking a stack of printed charts as if the missing item might fall out by magic. “This is my biggest presentation. My future. And you’re just standing there.”
“I’m standing here because this is my home too,” Amara replied quietly.
Daniel’s eyes were red from too many nights chasing ambition. He’d been sweet to clients and cold to her. She’d watched him change slowly—fewer shared meals, more unexplained meetings, more distance growing like rot you don’t notice until it’s everywhere.
“What did you do with it?” he demanded.
“Do with what?” Amara asked.
“The USB drive!” he shouted. “Where is it?”
Her chest tightened. “I didn’t touch—”
“You’re always in the way,” he cut her off, voice loud enough to make the windows tremble. “Can’t you see today matters?”
She wanted to say, I see you slipping away. But Daniel’s anger didn’t want truth—it wanted a target.
“I can help you look,” she said again.
He laughed, sharp and dismissive. “Help? You don’t even work. You don’t earn anything. Your job is cooking and cleaning.”
The words didn’t explode.
They sank.
Heavy. Wet. Suffocating.
Amara felt something inside her crack—but not break. Because if it broke, she might scream. And Amara had learned the strength of silence.
Daniel grabbed his jacket.
He didn’t apologize.
Didn’t soften his words.
Didn’t look at her like she was human.
The door slammed.
The house fell quiet—but it was the wounded kind of quiet.