Chapter 1
My father held me by the throat while my three-year-old son disappeared beneath the water.
That was the moment Thomas Moretti stopped being my father.
Vanessa had slapped Ethan first.
Hard enough to turn his little face sideways.
Then she shoved him.
He vanished over the edge of the deep end.
I ran.
Thomas caught me from behind.
One thick forearm locked across my throat.
“Every dog knows how to swim.”
I clawed at his arm.
He tightened it.
Vanessa laughed.
Actually laughed.
Ethan surfaced once.
Tiny hands reaching.
Then disappeared again.
I drove my heel onto Thomas’s foot, twisted beneath his arm and broke free.
The pool swallowed my gown.
I reached Ethan underwater.
Dragged him up.
He coughed against my shoulder when I got him onto the tiles.
“Mommy.”
“I’m here.”
His hands locked around my wet dress.
Then I saw Marcus.
Crawling beneath a cocktail table.
Reaching toward Ethan’s tablet case.
The screen lit by itself.
A recording began playing.
“We’ll stage it to look like an accident.”
Marcus froze.
So did Thomas.
I looked at the tablet.
Then at them.
Marcus lunged.
I stood.
He swung first.
I slipped outside the punch and hit him once.
He crashed backward through the rolling cocktail station as ice buckets and plastic champagne flutes scattered across the terrace.
Vanessa rushed toward Ethan.
Not to comfort him.
Toward the tablet.
I caught her wrist.
“Don’t.”
She clawed for it anyway.
I slapped her away and drove her backward into the DJ stand.
Then I picked up the tablet.
Two bodyguards wrapped Ethan in a towel behind me.
I turned toward Thomas.
Water ran from my hair.
My gown.
My hands.
“If you like staging things so much…”
His face finally changed.
“…tomorrow I’ll stage your disappearance.”
Ethan tugged my sleeve.
“Mommy.”
I looked down.
He whispered:
“Grandpa told Aunt Vanessa I wasn’t supposed to come back out.”
Thomas went completely still.
May you like
And suddenly I knew the recording had not captured an ugly joke.
It had captured a plan.
