Chapter 1

I poured over a million into raising my daughter, and she landed a coveted spot at a top employer. Then, at the dinner we threw to celebrate, she wiped the dignity off my face with a single line.

"I've got a succubus tattooed on my stomach. Feel free to report me, all of you. My future doesn't matter. Taking revenge on the toxic family that raised me, that's what matters."

As she spoke, she started pulling off her shirt, right there in front of everyone.

Her eyes burned with resentment as she accused me and my husband.

"So what if Hilary's got no money and no education? What's actually wrong with him? I want you two to know what it feels like to have something precious of yours destroyed!"

The whole room went dead silent. Every face was turned toward us, watching my husband and me become a joke.

But I was the one who raised my phone first. "Got it. Already sent to your boss."

Only my husband's money and connections kept it from blowing up any further.

And she took the mercy and spat on it. That very night she posted online:

"A succubus tattoo still wasn't enough to get me fired. My family has money and power. What do I have to do to get justice for my first love?"

People in the comments told her to report herself. Others told her to pull something even bigger.

She liked every one of them.

While I sat there aching, my husband came over, worn out.

"Forget it. There's nothing worth being angry about. A girl ready to die over some man, we'll just call raising her a loss."

"If the main account's ruined, she can open a new one. Big deal."

1

My daughter had stripped down to her underwear.

Under the spotlight, that painted tattoo hit me like an open hand across the face, and the room went dizzy around me.

More than three hundred people filled the hall. Even the servers carrying out dishes had frozen where they stood.

For a beat the whole place was dead quiet, and then it burst.

"Has the Swanson girl lost her mind?"

"Wow. One little strip, and the Swansons just threw away a lifetime of face."

"A daughter they spent millions raising. Well, she's finished now."

They talked while they looked at me.

Waiting to see what I, her own mother, would do after being knifed and shamed in public by my own child.

Some of the looks were subtle, some were open, but every single one carried a smirk.

The face my husband and I had earned over a lifetime was shredded in a single second.

Someone pulled out a phone to film it. I forced the surge of feeling back down, went up onto the stage, and draped a jacket over her.

I was furious, but my voice stayed soft. "Elena Swanson, stop this. Whatever you want to say, we'll say it at home."

Elena tore the jacket off, pointed at the tattoo on her stomach, and screamed at me like she had nothing left to lose.

"Ashamed of me? Good. That's exactly what I wanted."

"As long as it kills you both, I don't care if you put me up on some sleazy site to sell myself!"

"No. Even if you shipped me off to the red-light district and I lost a hundred pregnancies, I'd be happy!"

"From now on I'm not just getting a succubus. I'll get 'safe passage' inked across my lower back. I'll be lower than the cheapest hostess pouring drinks, and I'll do it just to kill you both!"

Foul, vicious words came pouring out of my daughter's mouth.

In that moment, the last trace of color drained clean from my face.

This dinner had been her idea in the first place. She'd made a point of telling me to invite lots of people, the more the better, the livelier the better.

So my husband and I invited everyone, both sides' relatives and friends, our bosses and our staff, everyone we had any dealings with.

In that instant, I wanted to die.

My husband finally couldn't watch anymore. He went up and struck her hard across the face.

"Elena, have you got no shame left at all!"

She held her cheek, the hatred in her eyes too thick to dissolve.

"If you've got the guts, beat me to death right now!"

"You killed my child, you drove away the man I love. I stopped wanting to live a long time ago!"

The moment those words landed, I watched the color leave the face of the most promising young man in my department.

He was the match I'd found for my daughter.

A graduate of a top school, one of the department's key people, and his mother and I were old classmates, so both families knew each other well. Married to him, she'd have been a ten-minute drive from home.

But now, all of it was ruined.

I couldn't even face his mother again.

My husband was shaking with rage, ready to hit her again, and I stopped him.

"It's already come to this. Beating her to death wouldn't change anything."

"She wants to get fired, doesn't she? I'll help her."

I took out my phone, aimed it at my daughter's bare upper body, and shot off more than a dozen pictures, snap after snap.

Then I sent every one of them to her direct supervisor.

My phone was linked to the big screen in the room. Every head turned toward me at once, looking at me the way you'd look at a lunatic.

Elena clearly froze. She'd probably expected me to break down sobbing with regret, or to keel over on the spot from rage.

Ever since that hairstylist boyfriend of hers squeezed two hundred thousand out of me and vanished, she'd lost it more than once.

Slitting her wrist in the bathroom, posting hysterical accusations online.

Reposting every kind of thing about freedom in love, escaping your toxic family, "my parents will only be sorry once I'm dead."

Before, I'd told myself she'd just lost her head for a while, that I only had to steer her back onto the right path.

But now, I just felt tired.

I turned to Elena and handed her everything, the ID and the family records I'd been carrying on me all this time to keep her from sneaking off to get married.

"Mom and Dad were wrong. You're right. Everyone has the right to chase their own happiness."

"From now on, whatever you choose, we won't interfere again."