Chapter 1
At three in the morning, I stood on my mother’s porch in a torn wedding dress, my lip bleeding and bruises spreading across my arms. I had been married for less than twelve hours.
My mother opened the door and froze.
“Emily?”
I tried to speak, but my voice broke.
She pulled me inside and locked the door behind us.
“What happened to you?”
I looked down at the wedding ring still on my finger.
“Ryan’s mother did this.”
My mother’s face went pale.
Only hours earlier, everyone at the reception had been telling me how lucky I was.
Ryan had held my hand, kissed my forehead, and promised he would protect me forever.
Then we reached the hotel.
His mother, Margaret, was already waiting inside our suite.
There were papers spread across the table.
“What is this?” I asked.
Margaret smiled.
“Just something we need to take care of now that you’re family.”
I picked up the first page.
It was a transfer agreement for the luxury apartment my father had left me before he died.
The apartment was worth more than a million dollars.
The papers would transfer ownership to Ryan.
“I’m not signing this.”
Margaret’s smile disappeared.
“You’re his wife now.”
“That doesn’t make my inheritance his.”
Ryan stood near the door without saying a word.
I looked at him.
“Tell her to leave.”
Instead, he locked the door.
My stomach turned cold.
Margaret picked up the pen and pushed it into my hand.
“Sign.”
“No.”
Her first slap knocked the pen across the room.
I stared at Ryan in shock.
He didn’t move.
“Ryan!”
He looked away.
Margaret grabbed my arm and slapped me again.
I screamed for him to help me.
Then I heard his voice from the other side of the sitting room.
“Not her face.”
I stopped struggling.
Margaret looked toward him.
Ryan lowered his voice.
“If you’re going to scare her, don’t leave anything people can easily notice tomorrow.”
Those words hurt worse than every blow.
The man I had married that morning wasn’t watching his mother attack me.
He was giving her instructions.
I somehow escaped when Margaret went into the bathroom to get water.
I ran through the hotel barefoot, still wearing my ripped wedding dress.
Now my mother was standing in her kitchen, shaking with anger as I told her everything.
Then headlights swept across the front windows.
A car stopped outside.
My phone began ringing.
RYAN.
Mom looked through the curtain.
“Emily,” she whispered.
“What?”
Her face changed.
“Ryan isn’t alone.”
I looked outside and saw Margaret step out of the passenger side holding the same folder I had refused to sign.
Then a second car pulled in behind them.
A man in a dark suit got out, and my mother suddenly grabbed my wrist.
“I know that man.”
I stared at her.
May you like
She looked more terrified than I had ever seen her.
“He was your father’s lawyer.”
