Chapter 4

The silence in the living room was so absolute I could hear the violent lashing of the rain against the large windows. Leonard stood frozen, staring at his wife.

The crumpled DNA report lay on the floor between them like a detonated grenade, blowing their perfect world to ash.

"Erika?" Leonard whispered. It was a trembling, terrifying rasp of a man whose entire reality had just been shattered. "Is it true?"

"She’s lying!" Erika shrieked, her voice cracking as she pointed a shaking finger directly at my face. "She’s a lunatic! A desperate, lying lunatic trying to deflect from her own filthy whoring! Leonard, don't listen to this trash!"

"Blood types don't lie, Erika!" I yelled back, standing my ground despite the blood dripping from my split lip. "Garrett is Type A! You and Leonard are Type O! Garrett isn't his son! You’ve been playing him for a fool for thirty years!"

Garrett froze. The arrogant smirk that defined his face for seven years melted into sheer terror. He looked at his father's pale face, then at his mother's guilty eyes. The realization hit him like a freight train.

If Leonard believed me, Garrett wasn't the heir to the Graham fortune. He was a bastard.

He would lose the mansion, the trust funds, the luxury cars, the entire company. He would be nothing.

"Shut your damn mouth!" Garrett roared, his eyes wide with panic.

He didn't just step toward me; he launched himself. His hands closed brutally around my throat, slamming me backward into the wall.

My skull cracked against the plaster, sending a blinding flash across my vision. The air was crushed from my lungs.

"Get rid of her, Garrett!" Erika screamed hysterically. She rushed forward. "Get this crazy bitch out of my house before she poisons your father's mind! Silence her!"

I clawed frantically at Garrett’s hands, gasping for air. But he was fueled by the desperate terror of losing his wealth.

"You want to ruin me?" Garrett hissed, his spit hitting my cheek, his grip tightening until black spots danced in my eyes. "I'll destroy you, Donna. I'll make sure no one in this world ever believes a single word you say."

"Make her look insane, Garrett," Nadine purred from the center of the room. She was still holding the hand of my biological son, watching my brutal assault with a sick, twisted smile of absolute victory. "Destroy her dignity. If she runs to the police looking like a raving lunatic, they'll lock her in a psych ward, not a precinct."

Erika didn't hesitate. She saw the perfect opportunity to mask her own monstrous crimes.

"Hold her down!" Erika ordered, her voice vicious and cold.

Garrett threw me to the hardwood floor. I hit the ground hard, but I fought back with everything I had. I kicked, I scratched, I screamed for someone, anyone, to help me. But they were too strong.

Garrett pinned my arms to the floor with his heavy knees, his weight crushing my chest, rendering me entirely helpless.

Erika grabbed the collar of my hospital scrub top. With a violent, vicious yank, she ripped the fabric straight down the middle.

The loud sound of tearing cotton echoed sickeningly in the room.

"No! Stop!" I screamed, thrashing wildly beneath Garrett’s crushing weight. "Don't do this!"

"You're a crazy, cheating whore!" Erika shrieked, slapping me across the face again and again, her heavy diamond ring cutting into my skin. She was putting on a show for Leonard, building the narrative of my insanity.

"You lost your mind! You stripped yourself! You're sick!"

She clawed at my undergarments. Garrett grabbed the waistband of my scrub pants and violently tore them down, dragging them over my boots.

Within seconds, my clothes were shredded rags scattered on the floor.

I was completely naked, bleeding, and exposed under the harsh, unforgiving glare of the crystal chandelier.

The humiliation was a physical agony, burning hotter and deeper than the bruises rapidly forming on my skin.

I sobbed, trying to curl inward, trying to hide my nakedness, but Garrett’s grip was iron.

"Get her out," Erika panted, stepping back and smoothing her perfect blonde hair as if she hadn't just violently assaulted a woman.

Garrett grabbed a thick fistful of my hair. I screamed in pure agony as he hauled me off the floor.

I tried to cover my breasts, my hands shaking violently, but he dragged me backward, my bare skin scraping painfully against the polished hardwood.

"Mommy!" Noah’s terrified, heartbreaking cry echoed from the top of the stairs.

"Noah!" I sobbed, reaching out toward the sound of the boy I had raised and loved with all my heart.

But Garrett didn't stop. He dragged me through the grand foyer, leaving my biological child standing silently next to his smirking mistress, and the boy I loved trapped upstairs in a house of monsters.

Garrett reached the heavy oak front door and yanked it open. The freezing night air hit my bare, bruised skin like a thousand icy needles.

The sky had broken open, unleashing a torrential, freezing downpour that flooded the porch.

"You're nothing," Garrett sneered, his eyes filled with absolute, remorseless malice.

With one final, brutal heave, he threw me out the door.

I crashed onto the rough, wet concrete of the front porch. The impact scraped the skin from my bare knees and elbows.

I scrambled to my feet, shivering violently, trying desperately to wrap my arms around my naked, freezing body.

Garrett stood in the warm, dry doorway, looking down at me with a cold, victorious smirk.

"Goodbye, Donna."

He slammed the heavy oak door shut.

The deadbolt clicked loudly, echoing over the crack of thunder.

Before I stood up to ask for help, I heard a boy crying and something heavy like a body fell from the balcony.