Warren rose.

“I’ll wait outside.”

It was the first time in years that a man had understood privacy without interpreting it as rejection.

PART 7

Her name was Elena Torres, and she brought a chair near the window rather than towering above my bed with a clipboard.

She asked whether I felt safe returning home.

I told her about the argument on the phone, the weeks of insults, and the way Vance controlled money whenever he wanted me to obey.

Then I heard myself describe the moment I’d been crawling across the floor, afraid my son was dying, while his father attended a party.