He cried, “She is crazy, just tell them!”
Grace slowly lifted her head from my shoulder.
She looked down at the man she had sworn to love, the man who had promised to protect her, for a very long time.
Then, with shaking hands, she untied the side strings of her hospital gown.
She let the fabric slip just far enough down her shoulder to expose the horrific, boot shaped bruises decorating her ribs to the federal agents.
“He did this to me,” she said, and her voice was no longer a whisper, but a conviction.
The entire room went dead still.
Veronica covered her mouth, not in maternal horror at what her son had done, but in cold, terrified calculation of what it would cost her personally.
The lead agent’s jaw locked.
She nodded sharply to the officer flanking her.
“Photograph the injuries immediately, contact the victims unit, and add witness intimidation and felony domestic assault to the federal charges,” she ordered.
“No, Grace, do not do this!” Declan thrashed against the agents as they violently dragged him backward out of the suite, his designer shoes scuffing the floor he used to walk like a god.
Grace turned her back on the doorway, ignoring his fading screams.
She looked back up at the black and white ultrasound monitor.
The sound of our baby’s heartbeat filled the suddenly quiet room.
It was fast, it was alive, and it was entirely free.
The empire had fallen, but as I held my daughter in the ruins of Declan’s kingdom, I knew the hardest part was not destroying the monster.
The hardest part would be teaching her how to live in the light again.