She choked back a sob, and I held her tighter, feeling her whole body vibrate with trauma. “They told me I had to sign the condo over to Julian’s family estate. When I said no, they threw me to the ground.

Beatrice held my hands down while Julian… he struck me, Mom. Over and over. They told me if I didn’t sign the deed over by morning, they would open the glass doors and throw me off the twentieth-floor balcony. They said they’d tell everyone I had a manic episode and jumped.”

Hearing those words made my vision go entirely blurry. My innocent daughter had been trapped in a room with monsters she thought were family. She told me she managed to escape when Julian went to the bathroom and Beatrice stepped out to take a phone call. She had sprinted down twenty flights of stairs, bypassed the valet, and ran through the rain all the way to my estate.
My hand instinctively reached for my phone to call the police, but then I stopped. A cold, calculating clarity washed over me. If I called the police, they would file a report, arrest Julian, and his wealthy family would have him out on bail before sunrise. They would hire high-priced lawyers, drag Lily’s reputation through the mud, and tie us up in court for years while my daughter lived in absolute terror.
No. The traditional justice system wasn’t going to fix this. Not tonight.

I scrolled past the emergency numbers in my contacts. I went all the way down to a contact I hadn’t dialed in fifteen long years—a man I had cut ties with because his lifestyle was too dangerous, too chaotic, and completely incompatible with raising a child. Lily’s biological father, Marcus.

He was a man who operated in the shadows, a ruthless figure in the city’s underbelly who made his living by ensuring his enemies never had the chance to strike twice.
I pressed dial. It didn’t even ring twice before he picked up.