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.

He nodded.

“Then we’ll proceed on that basis.”

After he left, I sat on the porch where the garden smelled of rain.

I had once trusted Martin to interpret contracts for me because he always sounded confident.

Now I knew that confidence and honesty were entirely different qualities.

I wasn’t becoming a lawyer or an investigator.

I was simply learning to read what people put in front of me before I signed away my future.

PART 16