Chapter 2
I sent for the family physician.
No hospital.
No uniforms.
No strangers asking questions Evelyn did not need while she was still trying to breathe.
My people knew how to bring help quietly.
Julian watched me make the call and smiled.
“Still controlling everything.”
I looked at him.
He wanted me angry.
Anger would let him pretend this was a fight between two powerful men.
It was not.
It was about the woman on the floor.
I sat beside Evelyn instead.
“When did this start?”
She shook her head.
“Dad…”
“When.”
Her eyes filled.
“That’s not easy.”
I softened my voice.
“I know.”
Julian laughed from across the room.
“She bruises easily.”
Evelyn’s hand tightened around mine.
There it was again.
A sentence she had heard before.
Maybe many times.
The physician arrived twenty minutes later. He examined her ribs, breathing, shoulder, and old discoloration along one arm.
Old.
Not tonight.
Not one argument.
He looked at me before he looked at Evelyn.
“She needs rest. I don’t think anything is broken, but she’s badly bruised.”
Julian spoke immediately.
“See?”
I turned.
He smiled.
“Nothing broken.”
Ethan hid behind my coat.
My anger became cold.
“You measure success by whether bones break?”
Julian’s smile vanished.
Evelyn whispered, “Dad, please.”
I looked at her.
She was frightened.
Not of him hitting her again while I stood there.
Of what came after.
That distinction mattered.
“What happens when I leave?” I asked.
Her face changed.
Julian stepped forward.
“You don’t get to interrogate my wife.”
I stood.
“She’s my daughter.”
“She’s my wife.”
Evelyn flinched.
I saw it.
So did Ethan.
I looked at Julian.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The word you use when you mean possession.”
He stared at me.
Then Ethan tugged my sleeve.
“Grandpa?”
I crouched.
“What is it?”
He pointed toward the hallway.
“Mommy hides things.”
Evelyn went pale.
May you like
Julian did too.
And suddenly the next secret in the house belonged to a three-year-old.
