Chapter 1 - Tell Me What Else You’ve Done
Claire hit the wet driveway on her hip because Daniel’s mother wanted to see whether a pregnant woman could still crawl.
The freezing rain came down hard over the farmhouse.
Cold needles against skin.
Black pavement shining beneath the porch lights.
Six overloaded grocery bags scattered across the steep driveway, oranges rolling into puddles, bread splitting open, glass jars clinking against the stones.
Claire was eight months pregnant.
Her soaked cream maternity dress clung to her legs. Her cardigan was heavy with rain. Blonde hair stuck to her face in wet strands. One hand went instantly to her belly as she twisted sideways before impact, protecting the baby with a fear older than thought.
Her forearm scraped the pavement.
Her hip took the fall.
Pain shot through her side.
“Please,” she gasped. “My baby.”
On the dry porch above her, Victoria Hale lifted a wine glass to her lips.
Daniel’s mother stood beneath the warm light in an elegant black evening dress and pearls, dry, polished, and calm.
Beside her, Victoria’s niece, Madison, lowered the hand she had just used to shove Claire.
Madison was twenty-nine, dressed in burgundy and a dark coat, hair dry under the porch roof, mouth curved with the kind of smile people wear when cruelty finally has an audience.
Claire tried to push herself up.
Her palm slipped on the wet pavement.
Her belly tightened with fear.
Madison walked closer, pointed down at her, and kicked one fallen grocery bag away from Claire’s reach.
“Then crawl and pick it up.”
Claire stared at the groceries rolling in the rain.
The milk carton.
The apples.
The prenatal vitamins Victoria had made her buy with her own money because “Daniel shouldn’t pay for your dramatics.”
Her breath came in short, broken gasps.
She tried to rise again.
Pain caught her.
She winced and covered her belly with one hand.
Then headlights swept across the driveway.
Victoria turned her head.
Madison’s smile flickered.
The black SUV rolled in from the road faster than expected.
The camera of real life followed it before the driver’s door opened.
Daniel stepped out into the freezing rain.
No umbrella.
Navy business suit already darkening at the shoulders.
Open collar.
Short dark hair wet within seconds.
He saw Claire on the ground.
The grocery bags.
Madison standing over her.
Victoria on the porch with the wine glass.
For one moment, Daniel did not move.
Shock held him still.
Then he ran.
“Claire!”
He dropped beside her on the pavement, rain hitting both of them, and carefully slid his hands beneath her arms.
“Don’t lift me wrong,” Claire whispered, terrified.
“I won’t,” he said, voice shaking.
He helped her stand slowly, firmly, keeping her belly protected, taking her weight against his own body. Claire clutched his sleeve, knees trembling.
Daniel moved her behind his shoulder.
Only then did he look at Madison.
“What happened?”
Madison opened her mouth.
Victoria spoke first from the porch.
“She slipped.”
Daniel’s eyes did not move from Madison.
Claire’s fingers tightened on his coat.
“She shoved me,” Claire whispered.
Daniel went still.
Madison laughed nervously.
“Oh, please. She was being dramatic. She dropped the bags and—”
Daniel crossed the wet pavement in three hard steps.
Madison lifted her chin, still arrogant enough to think family would protect her.
It did not.
Daniel planted his feet and delivered one sharp open-hand slap across her cheek.
The sound cracked through the rain.
Madison’s head turned. Her wet hair whipped sideways. She stumbled back two steps, one hand flying to her cheek.
Victoria gasped.
Not because Claire had been shoved.
Because Madison had finally been touched back.
Daniel did not chase her.
He stood between the women and his pregnant wife, rain running down his face, his voice cold enough to cut through the storm.
“Tell me what else you’ve done to her.”
Victoria’s wine glass began trembling.
Madison’s arrogance collapsed.
Claire stood behind Daniel, crying, one hand pressed to her belly.
May you like
And in that instant, Daniel understood the shove was not the beginning.
It was the first thing he had arrived in time to see.
