Chapter 1
My mother-in-law had one foot pressed against my back while I crawled across the living-room floor, wiping up the mess she had deliberately spilled.
“Move faster,” Diane snapped. “You’re useless even at cleaning.”
My hands were trembling.
Then the front door opened.
My husband, Ethan, had come home early.
He stopped cold.
“Mom?”
Diane quickly stepped away from me.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” she said. “Your wife has been completely unreasonable all day. Someone had to teach her some respect.”
Ethan’s face changed.
He crossed the room, helped me to my feet, and pulled me behind him.
“You put your foot on my wife?”
Diane folded her arms.
“She deserved it. You have no idea how outrageous she’s been.”
Then Ethan noticed the broken phone on the floor beside my cleaning bucket.
Its voice recorder was still running.
Diane saw it too.
Her face went pale.
“What did she record?”
I didn’t answer.
Diane suddenly reached for the phone.
Ethan blocked her.
Then he turned and slapped her once across the face.
The shock spun her around and she dropped backward onto the sofa.
The entire room went silent.
Ethan stood between us, shaking with anger.
“No one is ever allowed to put their hands on my wife.”
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Diane stared at the phone on the floor—
and for the first time, she looked more terrified of what was recorded than of her own son.
