At my birthday party, my husband tied me to a ceiling beam and wh*pped me thirty times because I had stained his mistress’s dress. “Maybe now you’ll learn your place,” he laughed while everyone watched. I didn’t cry. When they finally cut me down, I picked up my phone and called my five brothers. “Make his entire family beg for mercy,” I whispered. Then the front gates suddenly slammed shut.
He was looking at me now, and the lost expression was gone, replaced by something harder and colder.
“You planned all of this.
Tonight.
The party.
The dress.
You arranged it.”
“I spilled wine on a dress,” I said.
“You tied me to a beam.”
“You knew they were coming.
You knew what Marcus had.
You set this up.”
“Isaac,” I said.
“I’ve been quiet for four years.
I stopped being quiet tonight.”
He stared at me for a long moment.
Then he looked at the door.
“Don’t,” Noah said.
His voice was very calm.
“The gate is still closed.
And Caleb is still outside.”
Isaac looked at the window.
The black SUV was still there.
Caleb was still on the phone.
Isaac sat back down.
But the look he gave me before he did — that look was not defeat.
I did not sleep in the Vance estate that night.
Noah drove me to a hotel two miles from the estate while Julian stayed behind with Caleb to manage the documentation handover with the investigators who arrived at eleven-fifteen.
