My new husband thought he had three more days to play the tyrant while I was away on business. He didn’t hear my key turn in the lock. He didn’t see me discover my frail daughter locked in a dark room, forced to do manual labor without food. Instead of bursting in and confronting him, my grief turned into ice. I quietly gathered the nanny-cam footage, dialed the chief of police, and waited in the kitchen. When he finally strolled downstairs expecting his meal, his life officially ended.
A primal, maternal rage erupted in my chest. I wanted to kick the door off its hinges and tear that monster apart with my bare hands. But just then, heavy footsteps and an arrogant, off-key whistling echoed from the staircase. He was coming down.
My jaw locked. Confronting him now in a hysterical rage would only give him room to lie. In that microscopic fraction of a second, the grieving mother died. The ruthless, cold-blooded CEO resurrected in her place.
I bit my lip, stepped back, and silently pulled the bathroom door shut. Melting into the shadows of the hallway, I pulled out my phone to access the hidden, encrypted camera network he didn’t know existed.
He strolled into the kitchen, cracked open a cold beer, and yelled, “You done cleaning yet, brat?!”
