A quiet, useful, obedient woman who paid the bills and absorbed the insults and would never, ever fight back, because fighting back was not in her nature.

It was a comforting thing for them to believe, and it was the single most expensive assumption they ever made.

“I have it,” I whispered into the phone.

“The evidence.

From the second Julian walked through that door tonight demanding the food, I hit record on my phone.

Every word he said.