I answered coldly, wanting the boundary drawn early. “That penthouse belongs to Chloe, and no one else touches it.”

It was the plain truth. My ex-husband, Robert, had signed it over to Chloe after our divorce — a property worth nearly two million dollars, the only safe asset our daughter had in her name.

Victoria smiled, slow and cool. “Of course. I only ask so I know what kind of family my son is marrying into.”

Then came the demands for a wedding contribution: cash, family heirlooms, what she called “security guarantees,” as if my daughter’s marriage were a hostile corporate merger.

I refused flatly. Chloe cried and told me Lewis loved her, that his family was simply traditional, that I was inventing problems where none existed.

In the end I agreed to a far bigger wedding than I wanted. But I made one thing plain to everyone: the penthouse would never be transferred to anyone else.

Now my daughter sat trembling on my sofa with her back covered in raw red welts. “After the reception, Lewis took me up to our hotel suite. I thought we were finally going to be alone.”

She covered her face and sobbed. “Then he said he had some business to handle in the lobby, and he left. Twenty minutes later, his mother came into the suite with six other women and locked the door behind them.”

I pressed a hand over my mouth against a wave of nausea.

Chloe’s voice broke. “She grabbed me by the hair and asked when I was signing the penthouse over to her family. I told her I never would.”

She fought to catch her breath. “So she slapped me. Again and again and again. I counted forty times, while the other women laughed and said a disobedient daughter-in-law has to be trained early.”

My whole body went cold. “And Lewis? Where was he?”