Elena clutched my sleeve. “Victor said they own the prosecutor. He said they can make Daniel disappear.”
The seamstress whispered that we needed to call the police.
“No,” Elena gasped. “They’ll know. Victor has people everywhere.”
I looked at my daughter’s reflection. Twenty-four years old. Brilliant. Gentle. Terrified inside a gown that cost more than our first house.
I did not scream. I drew the silk back over her wounds, turned her with care, and kissed her damp cheek.
“Then you will walk down that aisle tomorrow, my love.”
Her face collapsed. “How can you say that?”
“Because tomorrow is not their wedding.”
I paid the seamstress enough cash to shut her shop for a week, then drove Elena home through the rain. After the doctor documented every injury and sedated her, I sat by myself in my dark kitchen.
For twenty years, everyone had known me as Margaret Hale: widowed mother, scholarship administrator, the woman who brought casseroles after funerals.
