Prologue
Always have an escape plan.
Words my mother often lived by and advice she’d passed on to me. Except I didn’t ever think I’d have to use that advice. As the sun falls on Monday, I slowly work on cleaning up the kitchen after dinner. I’d made his favorite, spicy buffalo wings, which always have the same effect.
He eats. It tears up his stomach. He goes to bed earlier than normal for work tomorrow. Normally, it would give me time to work on my little projects or hobbies I’ve picked up. Tonight, it’s a different plan.
“I’m going to bed,” Ric announces right on cue.
I glance up from scrubbing the counter. “Okay. Good night,” I respond with a smile I’ve practiced in the mirror. I walk on eggshells often enough that I know how to appease him. Sometimes, it doesn’t work though. Sometimes, I get bruises because I wasn’t convincing enough.
Once, I had a broken arm. Broken in three places. And that wasn’t even the first or last break.
He nods and looks around the kitchen. “Make sure it’s spotless before you come to bed. Last time you left a drop of hot sauce on the counter, and it got all over my phone.”
“Of course,” I murmur, looking away from his smug face.
He thinks I’m stuck here. He thinks that there’s no chance that Elsie and I could leave. Admittedly, he has a lot of pull in the city. Ric is friends with the mayor and a lot of cops. He’s always showing everyone but me what a great guy he is. He convinces everyone that he’s nice and helpful, and then he stabs them in the back when it suits him. No one ever believes the accuser because Ric is “such a nice guy.” Ugh. I’m so tired of hearing how fucking “nice” he is.
That’s how he’d stolen the program some poor sap had written. He’s made me go to dinner with the man and his wife, had forced me to play the part of supportive wife while Ric tirelessly convinced the man to hand over the program so he could “check it for mistakes.” Instead of doing that, he’d taken it to Aria Tech and passed it off as his own. When the man had come forward and accused him of stealing, no one believed him, and I’d been forced to watch another person fall at the hands of my husband. Thing is, they don’t know how to set it up. Ric can’t train them on the new program without revealing the fact he never wrote it, so he’s been threatening the guy to teach him in exchange for some royalties I know he’ll never see.
But he’s such a great guy to everyone else. Until you marry him, apparently.
Somehow, I’d been just as convinced as everyone else. And narcissists are fucking wizards when it comes to convincing you that you deserve their treatment. I’ve been complacent for too long, allowing him to treat me like shit, letting him bully me around, cowering when he raises his fists. But he’d stepped over a line three days ago.
I’d been okay with being his punching bag.
I’d been okay with playing pretend and happy Stepford wife.
But when he raised his hand to Elsie. . .
I scrub harder at the counter, not because I want it to be clean, but because I need him to be asleep before I’m ready. I need to make sure he won’t wake up. In fact, the melatonin I’d crushed up and added into the hot sauce should keep him asleep for as long as possible, as long as we need. I scrub and scrub and scrub, barely taking notice of anything else.
When the clock strikes ten PM, I look up.
Always have an escape plan.
Thanks, Mom. Even dead, you save me.
I drop the cloth I’d been using to clean everything and move over to the bedroom, glancing inside to see Ric snoring away, dead to the world until the morning. I’d used enough melatonin that he shouldn’t even wake up for his alarm. Only once I watch him for ten minutes, and am certain he won’t move, do I tiptoe over to Elsie’s room.
She sits up the moment I open her door, her eyes wide. “Is he asleep?” she whispers.
I nod and move with soft steps as I grab the suitcase from her closet that I’d packed earlier today. Only the essentials. Mostly Elsie’s favorite things. I don’t need many clothes. I only grabbed the bare necessities and things I couldn’t live without, like the photo album my mother had gifted me before she’d died. I’d already submitted the paperwork for the restraining order earlier today with all the proof of abuse. My lawyer made sure that it will be pushed through and be in effect by tomorrow, good for two weeks until a judge can look into it and decide for himself if my proof is worth enough. Hopefully, it’ll be one of the judges that isn’t friends with Ric. As we move toward the front door, I set a manila folder on the counter.
Divorce papers and the temporary restraining order copy.
I have no doubt he’ll refuse to sign the divorce papers, but these aren’t the only copies. My lawyer will be handling all paperwork from here on out. I don’t have high hopes that divorce will be possible or even that the restraining order will hold, not when one party will be vehemently against it, but I have to try. I’m hopeful that with the evidence of abuse that the family court won’t allow him visitation with Elsie. Either way, I won’t be around to let him get his hands on her.
As we step out of the house, the lawyer hovers outside beside a black car on the street; the lights are off, but the engine is running. The moment she sees us, she gestures for us to hurry up and we rush forward, throwing everything in the backseat before I make sure Elsie is fastened in. When I move back so I can get in my own seat, her little hand wraps around my wrist.
“We’re going to be okay, Mommy,” she whispers.
Seven years old and already wise beyond her years. She shouldn’t have to be. She never should have been in this situation. I’ll protect her. I’ll make sure her father never hurts her again.
“I know, baby,” I whisper, before closing the door gently and climbing in the front passenger seat.
“Your plane tickets,” my lawyer, Mrs. Bethany Cline says, handing them over to me. She’s a sweet older woman, a hell of a lawyer, and a lifesaver. When I’d hired her, I’d never imagined she’d go as above and beyond as she already has. Turns out, we both have something in common. “You’ll be in New York before the sun rises.”
