Chapter 2
I stared at those words until they stopped looking like letters.
Then get the kid out.
My daughter was the kid.
My six-year-old child, shaking in my arms with a red cheek and ruined braid, had been reduced to an obstacle in a text message.
Amanda reached for me slowly.
“Daniel, listen to me.”
I stepped away.
“Do not touch us.”
Her bridesmaids stood frozen near the open door.
My sister Rachel appeared behind them, still holding Sophie’s little flower crown.
She took one look at Sophie’s face and her own face changed.
“What happened?”
Amanda turned fast.
“She attacked me.”
Rachel looked at the scattered bouquet.
Then at Sophie.
Then at me.
Her voice dropped.
“Daniel?”
“Amanda hit her.”
One bridesmaid gasped.
Another whispered, “No.”
Amanda spun toward them.
“Don’t stand there like idiots. Tell him she was acting out.”
No one answered.
Rachel crossed the room and reached for Sophie.
My daughter held tighter to me at first.
Then she saw it was Rachel and reached with one hand.
Rachel touched Sophie’s cheek and inhaled sharply.
“I’m calling the police.”
Amanda screamed, “On my wedding day?”
Rachel looked at her like she was something on the bottom of a shoe.
“You slapped a child.”
Amanda’s mother, Patricia, stormed into the room in a champagne dress.
“What is going on?”
Amanda ran to her.
“He’s ruining everything.”
Patricia’s eyes moved to Sophie’s face.
They did not soften.
They narrowed.
That was the second time my stomach dropped.
A normal person sees a hurt child and reacts.
Patricia calculated.
“What did Sophie do?” she asked.
Rachel snapped, “Are you serious?”
Patricia ignored her.
She walked toward me with her hand out.
“Daniel, give me Amanda’s phone.”
“No.”
“That device contains private family communications.”
“She is not my family.”
Amanda flinched like I had struck her.
Good.
Patricia’s voice hardened.
“You need to think before you humiliate my daughter in front of three hundred people.”
I looked toward the hallway.
Downstairs, the guests were murmuring louder.
The music had stopped completely.
The wedding planner hovered near the stairs, pale and panicked.
I handed Sophie to Rachel.
“Take her downstairs through the side hall. Keep her with you.”
Sophie grabbed my sleeve.
“No, Daddy.”
“I’m right here.”
“Don’t stay with Amanda.”
“I won’t.”
Her eyes searched mine like she needed the words to become walls around her.
“I promise,” I said.
Rachel took her out, but Sophie looked back at me every few steps.
That look nearly broke me.
Amanda moved the second Sophie left.
She lunged for the folder.
I got there first.
Patricia tried to block me.
I moved around her and snatched it from the vanity.
Amanda’s voice sharpened.
“Daniel, those are legal documents. You can’t just—”
“They have my name on them.”
I opened the folder fully.
There were signatures already inside.
Not mine.
Amanda’s.
Patricia’s as witness.
A notary stamp.
A blank line where my signature was supposed to go.
The document said I agreed to move the house into a marital trust controlled jointly by Amanda and me.
Except page six said if I died, disappeared, became incapacitated, or was declared unstable, Amanda became sole trustee.
Page nine said Sophie could be enrolled in a therapeutic boarding school if Amanda believed it was in the child’s best interest.
I felt sick.
“You were going to send her away.”
Amanda’s mouth tightened.
“She needs help.”
“You hit her.”
“She is manipulative.”
“She is six.”
Patricia stepped closer.
“Six is old enough to learn consequences.”
Something cold moved through me.
“How long have you known?”
Patricia smiled without warmth.
“Known what?”
“That your daughter was hurting mine.”
“She was disciplining her.”
I laughed once.
It did not sound like me.
Behind Patricia, one of Amanda’s bridesmaids began crying.
Amanda saw it and snapped, “Olivia, shut up.”
Olivia shook her head.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
She was young.
Maybe twenty-four.
Amanda’s cousin, I thought.
She stepped into the room, hands trembling.
“No, I’m done.”
Amanda’s eyes went wide.
“Don’t.”
Olivia looked at me.
“She told me not to say anything. She said Sophie was dramatic. But I saw bruises after the engagement party.”
The room tilted.
“What bruises?”
Amanda lunged toward Olivia.
I grabbed Amanda’s wrist before she reached her.
“Answer me.”
Olivia pulled out her phone.
“I took pictures because I was scared.”
Patricia hissed, “You stupid girl.”
Olivia flinched but kept going.
She turned her phone toward me.
Sophie’s arm.
A small purple mark near her elbow.
Another behind her shoulder.
Dates at the top of the photos.
Two months ago.
Six weeks ago.
Eleven days ago.
I gripped the folder until the paper bent.
Amanda cried, “She falls all the time.”
Olivia whispered, “You told me she deserved it.”
The hallway erupted.
Someone downstairs shouted my name.
A man pushed through the bridesmaids.
My future father-in-law, Richard, red-faced and furious.
“What did you do to my daughter?” he shouted at me.
Then he saw Amanda’s phone in my hand.
His anger vanished.
Only for a second.
But I caught it.
He knew about the phone.
He knew about Cole.
I stepped toward him.
“Who is Cole?”
Richard looked at Amanda.
Amanda shook her head fast.
Patricia whispered, “Richard.”
I raised the phone.
“Who is Cole?”
No one answered.
Then Sophie’s voice came from the hallway.
Small.
May you like
Terrified.
“He’s the man who came to our house when you were at work.”
