Chapter 1
My stepmother was throwing me out of my own home when she received a notification that would destroy every lie she had ever told my father.
I was eleven years old, standing in our living room with tears streaming down my face, watching Vanessa shove my suitcase toward the front door.
“Stop acting like this is your home!” she screamed.
The suitcase struck my shoes.
I stumbled backward, clutching my backpack against my chest.
My hands were shaking so badly that the zipper rattled against its metal teeth.
“Please,” I whispered. “I haven't done anything wrong.”
Vanessa stood in front of me, her sleek black bob perfectly arranged, her burgundy blouse spotless.
She looked nothing like the loving woman my father had married two years earlier.
She looked like someone who had been waiting a long time for this moment.
“You've been disrespectful for months,” she snapped. “I'm tired of your attitude. I'm tired of your crying. And I'm tired of pretending you're an innocent little angel.”
I stared at her in disbelief.
That morning, I had gotten an A on my science test.
I had washed the dishes, folded the laundry, and finished my homework before she returned from work.
The only thing I had done wrong, according to Vanessa, was ask why she had thrown away the birthday card my mother had sent me before she died.
Apparently, even remembering my mother was an offense in her house.
“Dad said this is my home too,” I whispered.
Vanessa's expression changed.
For one second, I saw something ugly flash behind her eyes.
Then she turned toward the family photographs arranged on the wooden shelf.
She grabbed the largest frame.
It contained a picture of me and my father, Marcus, taken at the beach the summer before he married Vanessa.
I was sitting on his shoulders, laughing so hard that my eyes were closed.
My father was smiling at me like I was the most precious thing in the world.
Vanessa ripped the photograph from the shelf.
“Your father isn't here,” she said coldly. “And until he comes back, I make the rules.”
She dropped the frame onto the table.
The glass cracked.
I flinched.
“Please don't break that,” I begged. “It's my favorite picture.”
“Then maybe you should have behaved better.”
Something inside me seemed to collapse.
My father had traveled to Atlanta for a three-day construction conference.
He had called me the night before and promised to bring home my favorite strawberry candy.
He had also promised that I could help him build a treehouse in the backyard when he returned.
I had been counting the hours until I saw him again.
Now, Vanessa was sending me away before he could come home.
She grabbed my upper arm.
“Move.”
Her fingers dug into my skin as she dragged me toward the hallway.
I tried to pull away.
“Let go of me!”
She tightened her grip.
“Don't you dare raise your voice at me.”
“Dad's going to find out!”
Vanessa suddenly laughed.
It wasn't a nervous laugh.
It was the laugh of someone who believed she had already won.
“Your father believes me, Nia. Not you.”
She released my arm so abruptly that I stumbled into the wall.
I pressed my back against it, fighting to breathe through my tears.
Vanessa stepped closer.
“Do you know why he believes me?”
I shook my head.
“Because I don't spend all day whining. Because I don't make everything about myself. Because I know how to be a wife.”
Her words hurt more than I wanted to admit.
My father had loved my mother deeply.
After she died, I had watched him struggle to remember how to smile.
Vanessa had entered our lives when I was nine.
At first, she brought cupcakes, bought me new shoes, and called me sweetheart.
I wanted so badly for her to love me that I ignored the small changes.
The way she smiled when Dad entered a room, then glared at me when he left.
The way my favorite things slowly disappeared.
The way every argument somehow became my fault.
And the way she always whispered something different to my father after I went to bed.
Now I understood why she had been so patient.
She hadn't been trying to become my mother.
She had been trying to make sure there was no room for me in her life.
“Please,” I said again. “Can we wait until Dad comes home?”
Vanessa pointed at the door.
“You have five minutes.”
I bent down to pick up my backpack.
That was when her phone chimed.
She glanced at the screen.
The color drained from her face.
For the first time since I had known her, Vanessa looked genuinely frightened.
“What is it?” I asked.
She quickly turned the phone toward herself.
But I had already seen the notification.
HOME CAMERA: MOTION CLIP SHARED WITH MARCUS.
My father had installed security cameras throughout the house after a burglary in our neighborhood.
He had explained that the cameras would protect us.
Vanessa had rolled her eyes when he showed us how they worked.
She said nobody needed to watch their own living room.
Now she stared at her phone as if it were a loaded weapon.
“Who did you send that to?” she whispered.
I looked at her, confused.
“I didn't send anything.”
She tapped the screen frantically.
“No. No, no, no.”
My heart began pounding.
“Vanessa?”
She ignored me.
Then the lock on the front door clicked.
Both of us turned.
The door opened.
My father stepped inside, still wearing the dark-green shirt he had worn when he left that morning.
His travel bag hung from one hand.
His phone was in the other.
His eyes moved from my swollen face to my suitcase, then to the broken photograph on the table.
For a moment, he didn't speak.
Then he looked at Vanessa.
“Why is my daughter being thrown out?”
Vanessa's mouth fell open.
“Marcus! You're home early.”
He didn't answer her.
He walked toward me.
When he saw the red marks on my arm, his expression changed so completely that I barely recognized him.
“Nia, baby, what happened?”
I tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
He dropped his bag and wrapped his arms around me.
I buried my face against his chest.
For the first time in what felt like forever, I allowed myself to cry without worrying about being punished.
My father held me tighter.
Then he looked over my shoulder at Vanessa.
She had begun shaking her head.
“Marcus, this is a misunderstanding. She's been impossible all week.”
He raised his phone.
“I watched the recording from the living room camera.”
Vanessa went completely still.
My father took one step toward her.
“And that was only the beginning.”
He looked down at his screen.
His thumb hovered over another video.
May you like
“Now I want to know what else you've been doing to my daughter.”
And when he pressed play, Vanessa's face became so pale that I knew whatever he was about to show us was worse than anything I had imagined.
