Chapter 2

"You useless idiot. I told you to set an example and you couldn't even manage that. When she flipped the table, why didn't you stop her?"

"You can't even carry a plate straight. Are you hoping to see this family humiliated?"

Gregory's shouting came through the door, each burst followed by a muffled grunt from his wife.

I pounded on the door.

"Gregory, she's pregnant. Why are you hitting her?"

No one out there answered me. Only the mother-in-law's voice, drifting past, not near and not far.

"Go easy. Don't hit the belly. It might be a boy."

Madison had stopped crying out. Only a stifled, choking sound came through faintly now.

I turned and searched the bedroom for my phone, but I went through everything and couldn't find it.

I remembered clearly. My bag had been sitting on the bay window ledge, my phone inside it.

When had they taken it?

I stood at the window and looked out. Ten-some floors down, and this new complex was almost empty, hardly anyone moved in.

All I could do was force myself calm.

Time crawled by. I watched the sky outside go from deep blue to solid black.

A whole day, and all I'd eaten was that one bite of celery at noon. My stomach had long since gone hollow, my throat parched.

Around midnight, I heard a faint scraping at the door lock.

The door opened a crack, and a hand reached in, pushing through two dinner rolls.

I yanked the door open. Madison was standing there.

Her left eye was swollen high, the corner of her mouth split open, her whole body poised to bolt at any second.

"Livvy, eat, quick. Don't let them hear."

I didn't take the rolls. I grabbed her wrist.

"Madison, are you all right? Is the baby okay?"

She shook her head, tears sliding down without a sound.

"Just bow your head."

"Mom says she'll make you eat raw eggplant tomorrow. Says it'll teach you to be meek, to have respect for your elders."

"If you don't eat it, she won't let you go."

"Listen to me. Bow your head, and you'll get through it. That's how I got through it back then."

That hurt worse than any beating or curse.

She wasn't telling me to endure. She truly believed it, that this was how a woman was supposed to live.

I opened my mouth to speak, and a hand shot in from behind her.

It grabbed her hair and wrenched her back.

"Well, well. Sneaking around in the middle of the night. What are you up to?"

Gregory had appeared in the doorway at some point I hadn't caught.

He seized Madison's hair and yanked her backward.

The back of her head cracked against the corner of the hallway wall with a dull thud.

Then Gregory raised his foot and kicked her in the small of the back.

"I think you've had too many pickled scraps, sticking your nose in other people's business!"

I rushed forward to pull Gregory off her, but he shoved me away and locked me back in the bedroom.

"Say one more word and I'll finish her off tonight."

I pressed myself against the door and heard Madison being dragged back to her room, and Gregory's low cursing.

My nails dug into the wood of the door until blood seeped from my fingertips.

All night, I sat against the door, and not one bite of that roll went down.

When the sky was just going gray, the door finally opened.

The mother-in-law walked in carrying a plate. On it wasn't just raw eggplant, but a slab of liver still bleeding at the edges.

She thrust the plate forward and gave me a cold smile.

"Second daughter-in-law, marrying into a well-educated family like ours, your ancestors' graves must have smoked with luck."

"And yet you had the nerve to egg my eldest daughter-in-law on to steal. Shows you're not with us in heart."

"Now eat this liver and eggplant."

"It means you'll serve the Simmons family gladly from now on, and it'll teach you some respect for your elders."

"Eat it all, and yesterday's business is over and done."

Behind her, Jarvis held my phone pinched between two fingers, waving it in front of me like he was teasing a cat.

"Livvy, look what you've done to this house."

"I'll hold onto the phone for now. Wouldn't want you doing something stupid on impulse."

He stepped closer and stroked the top of my head, wearing a look that said "this is hard on me too."

"Eat all this, own your mistake properly. Once Mom and Dad are happy, life will go smoothly from here."

Back when we used to fight, he always had this same unhurried tone.

Making you feel like you were the one being unreasonable, like backing down would open up the whole sky.

It was only today that I saw clearly. There was no tenderness in his eyes, only the smugness of a man who'd gotten his control.

I stared at the phone in his hand, and suddenly thought of something else.

"Jarvis, where's my bag?"

Besides my phone, my bag held my savings card.

He seemed to catch what I was thinking. The corner of his mouth curled up slowly, and he pulled a card from his pocket.

"You mean this?"