My father died suddenly, and when I ran for the door to say goodbye to him one last time, my husband locked it.

“Crawl under my dog three times, and I’ll let you leave,” he said. I didn’t cry. I didn’t beg. I took out my phone and made one call. Three hours later, his position as company director began to crumble.

Chapter 1 — One Phone Call

“If you want to go say goodbye to your father, you’ll have to crawl under my dog three times,” Edwin said with a smirk, dangling the front-door key between two fingers.

Beside him, a massive Caucasian Shepherd growled low on the marble floor of the grand entrance in Bel Air.

It was 1:45 in the morning, a violent rainstorm hammering the streets of the city.

Inside the mansion, Camila had just taken the call that told her her father, George Stanford, had died of a sudden heart attack.

“Please, Edwin, I need to get to the hospital right now — I just want to see him one last time,” she pleaded, her voice trembling.

Edwin didn’t bother to rise from his velvet armchair. He adjusted his silk robe with disdain.

“Your father’s been a financial burden for years, and I have an important board meeting in the morning,” he said. “I’m not going out in a freezing downpour for an old man who never did a single thing for me.”

Something broke in Camila’s chest — something that had held for five long years of steady abuse.