Todd was losing.
And that made him more dangerous than ever.
Dinner was the best we’d had since I moved in.
We’d picked up Chinese on the way home from the courthouse, too drained to cook, and somehow that made it better. No pressure to perform. Just white cartons spread across the kitchen table, Mia stealing Liam’s egg rolls, the three of us eating straight from the containers like we’d been doing this forever.
“And then Honey just walked right up to me,” she was saying, gesturing with her chopsticks, lo mein forgotten. “Like she’d been waiting. Liam says that means she’s starting to trust me for real, not just because I have apples.”
“Trust is trust,” Liam nudged the container of rolls toward me with his elbow, casual, like it was obvious. “Doesn’t matter how it starts.”
“But it’s better when it’s not just about food, right? Like, she actually wants to see me now. She made that sound—what did you call it?”
“Nicker.”
“Right. She nickered when I came to the fence. Before I even had treats.” Mia’s face was bright, animated—so different from the closed-off girl who’d arrived two months ago. “That means something, doesn’t it?”
Liam caught my eye across the table, and something warm passed between us.
Look at her. Look what’s happening.
I let myself sink into it. The warmth of the kitchen, the smell of soy sauce and ginger, Mia’s voice filling spaces that had been silent for so long. For an hour—maybe two—I forgot about the hearing. Forgot about Todd’s lawyer and his accusations, the home visit looming ahead, the fragile architecture of everything we’d built.
I just sat there, eating lo mein from the carton, watching my sister come back to life.
It felt dangerous to forget. Like standing too close to the edge of something. But I let myself have it anyway. One evening of pretending this was just my life now. Dinners with the people who felt like family. A kid who was learning to trust. A man who looked at me like I might be something worth keeping.
When Mia went to bed—still talking about Honey—I helped Liam clean up. We moved around each other in the small kitchen, tossing empty cartons, wiping down the table, not talking much. The comfortable silence of people who didn’t need to fill every space with words.
“She’s doing better,” he said, passing me a plate to dry, watching it for a second longer than necessary. “Really better.”
“Yeah.” My throat tightened. “She is.”
He didn’t say because of you or because of this place or any of the things that would have made me bolt. He just handed me another plate. We finished the dishes in silence, and I went to bed feeling something I barely recognized.
Hope, maybe.
Or the beginning of it.
The phone rang at 2 AM, pulling me out of a fitful sleep.
The darkness pressed in around me, familiar and suffocating.
The phone buzzed again. Unknown number.
I didn’t answer. Let it go to voicemail. Told myself that was control.
But when the notification lit up the screen, my thumb moved before I could stop it.
Todd’s voice poured into my ear—thick with alcohol, slick with something meaner.
“I know your schedule, Riley. I know when you work, when your husband works, when that little bitch is home alone.”
My stomach hollowed out.
A laugh followed, sharp and joyless. “I know where you are. I always know where you are. You think that fancy ranch is going to protect you? You think that fake marriage is going to save you?”
Then his voice dropped. No slur. No humor.
