Chapter 1
I came home early and heard my five-year-old daughter screaming in the bathroom. When I opened the door, my mother-in-law was forcing scissors through her hair.
“Please stop, Grandma!” Lily sobbed.
Half her hair was already scattered across the floor.
Diane gripped her chin and raised the scissors again.
I lunged forward and pulled Lily away.
“What are you doing to my child?”
Diane rolled her eyes. “Fixing that ugly hair.”
Lily clung to my uniform, shaking uncontrollably.
“She tied me to the chair, Mommy.”
A bathrobe belt hung from the chair’s arm.
Red marks circled Lily’s wrists.
My anger exploded.
I grabbed Diane by the hair and forced her toward the toilet.
“How does it feel when someone stronger controls you?”
She screamed as I held her face inches above the water.
“Emily, let me go!”
“Did you stop when Lily begged you?”
My husband, Ryan, suddenly appeared in the doorway.
He stared at his mother, then at the scissors.
“Get your hands off her!” he shouted.
For one hopeful second, I thought he meant Lily.
Then he dragged me away from Diane.
His mother immediately hid behind him.
“She attacked me for giving Lily a harmless haircut,” Diane cried.
I pointed at the belt and the bruises.
“She restrained our daughter.”
Ryan quietly kicked the belt beneath the vanity.
My stomach dropped.
“You knew she was doing this.”
Lily tugged my sleeve and whispered, “Daddy locked the bathroom door for Grandma.”
Ryan’s face turned white.
Then Diane grabbed a large purse from beneath the sink and rushed toward the hallway.
Lily saw it and screamed, “Mommy, don’t let Grandma take that bag!”
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I blocked the doorway and ripped it from Diane’s hands.
The purse opened, spilling Lily’s passport, birth certificate, and two one-way plane tickets across the bathroom floor.
