Chapter 4
The police arrived fifteen minutes later.
Victoria tried to become a different woman before they stepped inside.
Her voice softened.
Her shoulders trembled.
She touched her throat like she was fragile.
“I’m so frightened,” she told the officers.
“She attacked me first.”
David stared at her like he no longer recognized his own wife.
One officer looked at my arm.
The bruise had already darkened.
“Ma’am, did she strike you?”
I nodded.
“With the golf club.”
Victoria cried harder.
“She jumped in front of it.”
The officer blinked.
“You swung at a toddler?”
“I was swinging away from him.”
David handed over the tablet.
“Watch the footage.”
Victoria stopped crying.
The officer watched.
Then watched again.
His face changed.
He looked at Victoria.
“Turn around.”
Her mouth fell open.
“No. This is my house.”
David’s voice was quiet.
“It was.”
The handcuffs clicked.
Victoria screamed then.
Not with fear.
With fury.
“You’ll regret this, David. You think people will choose a maid over me?”
Leo began crying again.
I knelt beside him even though my arm burned.
“You’re safe,” I whispered.
He touched my sleeve.
“Ria hurt?”
He called me Ria because Maria was too hard for him.
I smiled through tears.
“A little.”
He kissed my bruised arm with the gentleness of a child trying to fix the world.
David saw.
His face crumpled.
After Victoria was taken away, the house felt too large.
Too quiet.
David carried Leo upstairs.
I followed because Leo refused to let go of my hand.
In the nursery, David stopped at the door.
The room looked perfect.
Blue curtains.
Soft rugs.
Tiny books.
Expensive toys.
But Leo pointed to the closet.
“Bad room.”
David looked at me.
My stomach twisted.
“What does he mean?”
I did not want to be the one to say it.
But Leo’s small fingers tightened around mine.
So I opened the closet door.
Inside was a pillow.
A water bottle.
A blanket.
And scratch marks on the inside of the door.
David whispered, “No.”
Leo hid his face.
I said softly, “She locked him in there when he cried.”
David staggered back like he had been struck.
Then he sat on the floor and pulled Leo into his lap.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
May you like
Over and over.
“I’m so sorry.”
