Chapter 1 - The Threat
“She said she would tell the police that you did it, Momma,” Chloe whispered, her voice trembling so violently her teeth chattered. “Nana said she’d burn me worse, tell the judge you did it, and make sure you went to a cage while I stayed here forever.”
The living room went dead silent. The red and blue lights from the police cruisers pulsed through the sheer designer curtains, casting harsh shadows across Eleanor’s suddenly pale face.
The older female officer, Officer Ramirez, stopped writing in her notepad. Her eyes shifted from my terrified, blistered eight-year-old to Eleanor, who was suddenly clutching her pearl necklace as if it could protect her.
“That is an absolute fabrication!” Eleanor gasped, her voice shrill, the aristocratic composure completely shattered. “She’s a child! She has an overactive imagination, planted by her spiteful mother—”
“Ma’am, put your hands behind your back,” the second officer, a tall man with a heavy duty belt, stepped forward.
“You can’t be serious,” Marcus intervened, stepping between the officer and his mother, his hands raised. “Look at this house. Look at us. We are respected members of this community. My ex-wife is just trying to extort us for custody—”
“Sir, step aside or you’ll be arrested for obstruction,” Ramirez warned, her hand resting naturally near her taser.
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Marcus froze. The man who had spent our entire marriage bullying me with his superior intellect and bank account suddenly looked like a frightened little boy. He stepped aside.
The sound of handcuffs ratcheting around Eleanor’s wrists was the sweetest sound I had ever heard. As they led her out, her pristine white silk blouse illuminated by the flashing police lights, I wrapped Chloe in my jacket. We were going to the hospital, and for the first time in years, we were not going back to Marcus’s rules.
