Chapter 1
Derek threw boiling coffee in my face at breakfast because I said one word.
“No.”
His sister Suzanne wanted my bank card again.
Not a loan.
Not help.
My card.
My money.
My account.
Derek sat across from me in the apartment I owned before I ever married him, reading Suzanne’s text like it was a court order.
“She needs your card,” he said. “Her payment declined.”
I kept my hands around my water glass.
“I already loaned her money three times. She never paid me back.”
Derek looked up.
His charming insurance-salesman smile was gone.
“I wasn’t asking, Skylar.”
“And I’m not negotiating.”
The mug left his hand before I could move.
Scalding coffee hit my cheek, jaw, and neck.
I screamed and stumbled into the sink, clawing for cold water.
Derek did not stand.
He watched me gasp like I had inconvenienced him.
“See what you made me do?”
My skin burned.
My hands shook.
But something inside me went very still.
He believed he owned me.
My apartment.
My salary.
My fear.
All of it.
He stood and grabbed his keys.
“Suzanne is coming over. By the time I get back, you’ll give her whatever she wants. Obey or leave.”
The door slammed behind him.
For thirty seconds, I stood under cold water, shaking so hard I could barely breathe.
Then I wrapped ice in a towel, grabbed my purse, and drove myself to the emergency room.
The nurse asked twice if it was an accident.
I almost lied.
Old habit.
Old shame.
Then the truth came out.
“My husband threw coffee at me.”
Everything changed after that.
They photographed my burns.
A doctor wrote a report.
A social worker sat beside me.
A police officer took my statement.
My signature trembled.
But I signed.
Two hours later, I returned to my Edgewater apartment with two officers and cardboard boxes.
I did not walk in begging.
I walked in packing.
Clothes.
Documents.
Passport.
My grandmother’s necklace.
Every piece of my life I could carry.
Then I left my wedding ring on the dining table.
Beside it, I placed a copy of the medical report.
But I forgot the shoebox in the back of my closet.
The old gray one under my winter boots.
Inside was something Derek was never supposed to find.
A flash drive.
A sealed letter.
And a photograph of the woman he told me was dead.
May you like
Derek would find it before I came back.
And when he did, he would finally know I had been investigating him too.
