When I came home late from work, my husband slapped me and screamed, “Do you know the time, you useless bitch? Get in the kitchen and cook for my mother!” I cooked for an hour, only for her to take one bite, spit it out, and shove me so hard I started bleeding—I knew I was losing the baby. I reached for my phone to call 911. My husband threw it away. I looked him in the eye and said, “Call my father.” They had no idea who he really was.

Chapter 1: The Bloody Dinner
The front door opened and shut with the soft click of a trap springing.

I stood in the foyer of my own personal hell, the keys cold in my hand. It was 7:15 PM. I was fifteen minutes late.

“You’re late.”

Dave’s voice came from the living room, low and venomous. He appeared in the doorway, a storm cloud in a tailored shirt. The smell of whiskey was a bitter halo around him.

“I’m sorry, Dave,” I said, my voice already a mouse’s squeak. “There was a last-minute issue at the office. I had to—”

The slap was a crack of thunder in the quiet house. My head snapped to the side, my cheek exploding with a white-hot pain.

“Excuses,” he spat. “My mother has been waiting for her dinner for an hour. Get in the kitchen.”

I stumbled past him, my hand cradling my face, tears already blurring my vision. My body ached. The morning sickness had been relentless all day, and now, at seven months pregnant, my back felt like a brittle twig.

In the kitchen, his mother, Mrs. Higgins, sat at the table like a bloated queen on her throne, tapping a perfectly manicured nail against a wine glass.