Chapter 1 - The Burn at Midnight
Grant Bennett pressed the glowing end of his cigarette against my cream sweater while his son held both of my wrists behind the dining chair.
For half a second, I couldn’t understand what was happening.
Then the heat reached my skin.
I screamed.
The crystal glasses on the marble table trembled as I twisted against Ryan’s grip. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, downtown Denver glittered beneath New Year’s Eve fireworks. Inside the penthouse I had paid for, my husband’s father was burning me while my husband made sure I couldn’t pull away.
“Being pregnant doesn’t make you untouchable in my family,” Grant said.
I was six months pregnant.
Ryan tightened his grip.
“Stop fighting. You’ll only make Dad hurt you worse.”
Across the table, Diane sat frozen with her wineglass halfway to her mouth.
Brooke stared from two chairs away, phone in hand.
Neither moved.
Grant touched the cigarette against my sweater again.
Pain exploded through me.
My daughter kicked.
That tiny movement changed something.
I stopped looking at Grant.
I looked at Ryan.
The man who had slept beside me for seven years was holding me down.
Three hours earlier he had kissed my forehead and told me I looked beautiful.
Two days earlier he had asked whether I could move another $300,000 into what he called a temporary Bennett family liquidity account before year-end.
I had said no.
Now his fingers were digging into my wrists.
Grant leaned toward me.
“You paid our bills. That never made you our equal.”
I drove my heel down on Ryan’s foot.
His grip loosened.
I tore free, stumbled against the marble island, and wrapped both arms around my stomach.
“Stay away from me.”
Ryan stared at me as if I had betrayed him by escaping.
I grabbed my phone and the silver penthouse key fob beside my plate.
Grant pointed toward the private elevator.
“Get out. Your money stays with this family.”
That almost made me laugh.
Almost.
I lifted the silver fob between us.
“This penthouse is mine.”
Ryan’s face changed.
Grant’s did not.
Not yet.
He still believed ownership was the biggest thing I could reveal.
It wasn’t.
I looked at Brooke.
Her phone screen was still glowing.
And for the first time all evening, I noticed what was displayed on it.
A banking app.
A transfer authorization.
My name.
$480,000.
May you like
Scheduled for 11:58 p.m.
I had never authorized it.
