Chapter 1
My mother-in-law slapped me while I carried a bowl of hot soup into the dining room on Christmas night.
The blow turned my head.
The bowl slipped from my hands.
Boiling soup splashed across my left arm before the bowl shattered against the floor.
I screamed and dropped to my knees.
For one terrible second, everyone froze.
Then my husband rushed across the room.
I thought Ryan was coming to help me.
Instead, he grabbed his mother’s hand.
“Mom, are you hurt?”
Diane stared at her palm as if she were the victim.
“She made me do it,” she said. “I told her not to serve that cheap soup in my family’s Christmas bowls.”
My skin burned beneath my soaked sleeve.
My mother ran to me with a wet towel.
My brother, Daniel, stood so quickly that his chair fell backward.
“Your mother just slapped Emma,” he shouted at Ryan. “Why are you checking her hand?”
Ryan finally looked at me.
There was no concern in his eyes.
Only anger.
“Apologize to Mom,” he ordered. “You embarrassed her in front of everyone.”
I stared at the man I had loved for nine years.
The man who had promised to protect me.
The man who was now standing beside the woman who had attacked me.
“Did you see what she did?” I asked.
“She lost her temper,” Ryan replied. “You know how she gets when you disrespect her.”
Diane smiled.
That smile broke something inside me.
For three years, she had insulted my cooking, mocked my clothes, and told Ryan I was not good enough for him.
I had stayed quiet to keep the peace.
But peace had never existed.
There had only been my silence.
I stood slowly.
On the table beside me was a glass pitcher filled with cold cranberry punch.
I picked it up.
Ryan narrowed his eyes.
“Emma, don’t.”
I poured the entire pitcher over Diane’s head.
She shrieked as red liquid ran down her hair, her face, and her expensive white dress.
Everyone gasped.
Diane raised her hand again.
This time, I caught her wrist.
“Touch me once more,” I said, “and you’ll spend Christmas in jail.”
Ryan seized my burned arm.
Pain shot through me.
I slapped him across the face and shoved him away.
“She attacked me, and you protected her!”
“You’ve lost your mind!” he yelled.
“No. I finally found it.”
I called an ambulance.
Then I told Ryan and Diane to leave.
Ryan laughed.
“This is my house too.”
“No,” I said. “My grandmother left this house to me before we married. Your name is nowhere on the deed.”
His face changed.
Diane wiped punch from her eyes.
“You ungrateful little witch,” she hissed. “Ryan gave you everything.”
“My wife paid your debts,” Dad said coldly. “Emma paid your car loan. She even paid for the suitcases upstairs.”
Daniel walked toward the staircase.
Dad followed him.
Minutes later, they carried Ryan’s and Diane’s luggage down and threw it onto the porch.
Ryan tried to stop them.
Daniel stepped between us.
“Touch my sister again,” he warned, “and you’ll answer to me.”
Diane screamed from the doorway.
“You can’t throw us into the cold!”
“You have a car,” I replied. “Use it.”
Ryan stared at me as though he had never seen me before.
“You’ll regret this tomorrow.”
“I regretted marrying you yesterday.”
I closed the door.
Then I locked it.
Diane pounded on the glass while snow fell around her.
“Merry Christmas,” I said through the door. “Find another family to abuse.”
The ambulance arrived minutes later.
As the paramedics treated my burned arm, Ryan’s phone began ringing on the porch.
Again.
And again.
He finally answered.
I could not hear the caller.
But I saw the color drain from his face.
Then he looked through the window at me.
May you like
And I knew Christmas night was only the beginning.
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