Chapter 1
I looked at my daughter curled beside the stone island, one arm wrapped around her ribs, then at the man who had put her there.
Julian was half buried beneath the tilted breakfast-tray rack. His face had changed the moment I stepped between him and Evelyn.
Not anger anymore.
Fear.
“You kept my daughter afraid to call me because you knew exactly who would come.”
My voice came out rougher than usual.
Julian stared at me.
Ethan was pressed against Evelyn’s side with her phone still in both hands. He was barefoot, wearing dinosaur pajamas, and shaking hard enough that the phone trembled against his chest.
Evelyn looked at me.
“Dad…”
I crossed the kitchen and crouched beside her.
“Can you breathe?”
“A little.”
That answer was not good enough.
One of my men moved toward Julian. The other stayed near the doorway.
Julian laughed bitterly.
“She’s fine.”
I turned my head.
Evelyn flinched before I even spoke.
That told me more than her bruises.
“How often does he say that?”
She looked down.
Julian pushed himself upright.
“Arthur, this is between husband and wife.”
I stood slowly.
“No.”
He stopped.
“The second my grandson had to crawl under furniture to call me because his mother couldn’t breathe, it stopped belonging to you.”
Julian’s jaw tightened.
Ethan whispered behind me.
“He takes Mommy’s phone.”
The room went still.
I looked at him.
“When?”
Ethan pointed at Julian.
“When she cries.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
Julian muttered, “He’s a child.”
I looked back at him.
“Yes.”
Then at Ethan.
“And somehow he already knows more about what happens in this house than I do.”
That was the part I could not forgive myself for.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
I had spent years believing Evelyn was distant because marriage had made her private.
May you like
Now I was standing in her kitchen realizing privacy had been manufactured for her.
And Julian had been the one manufacturing it.
