My husband pushed me down the stairs, and as I lay shattered at the bottom, my mother-in-law called my father and said, “Come get your worthless daughter and take her back.” Dad gave her only one warning: “If she has so much as a scratch, your family will answer for it.” They laughed at him because they had absolutely no idea who my father truly was.

That night I remembered standing in Martin’s study with a bank alert on my phone.

He had asked why I was snooping through “his” finances.

I had told him the account belonged to our family and that Lily’s future was not a private expense.

Had the argument begun before I even walked into the room?

I called Gabriel, then stopped myself before he answered.

I wasn’t ready to turn suspicion into certainty.

When he picked up, I told him exactly what the bank alert showed and exactly what Martin had said.

“Good,” Gabriel replied.