Chapter 1
I came home with birthday toys for my four-year-old daughter and found her kneeling beside the dog’s bowl, eating scraps with her hands. My wife sat nearby, calmly eating pizza.
“Sophie?”
My little girl looked up with tears cutting through the dirt on her face.
“Daddy, I was hungry.”
The toy bag slipped from my hand.
Vanessa took another bite of pizza.
“She refused to clean her room, so she lost dinner.”
“It’s her birthday!”
“She needs discipline, Daniel.”
Sophie quickly hid the food behind her back.
“I’m sorry, Daddy. Please don’t be mad.”
Those words shattered me.
I lifted her away from the bowl and saw bruises around her thin wrists.
Vanessa stood and reached for her.
“Put her down. She hasn’t finished her punishment.”
Something inside me snapped.
I grabbed Vanessa by the throat and drove her back against the wall.
“What did you do to my daughter?”
She clawed at my wrist, gasping.
I released her before Sophie could see anything more.
Vanessa dropped to the floor and screamed, “She’s lying!”
Sophie clung to my neck.
“She said Mommy died because I was bad.”
I stared at the woman I had trusted with my child.
Vanessa’s face went pale.
“That’s not what I said.”
I grabbed my phone to call the police.
Vanessa suddenly rushed toward the kitchen counter.
She snatched up a small black device and tried to smash it beneath her shoe.
I caught her wrist first.
It was the monitor connected to Sophie’s bedroom camera.
“You told me that camera was broken.”
Sophie pointed toward the basement door.
“She keeps the other videos downstairs.”
Vanessa stopped struggling.
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Then someone knocked three times from inside the locked basement.
Sophie buried her face against me and whispered, “Daddy, that’s the lady who says she’s my real mommy.”
