Chapter 1
I scrolled through Marcus’s phone one more time and felt something inside me go completely still.
Another video opened. Ellie was on her hands and knees in the same lawn, wearing a different dress. My father stood behind her with the belt while Lucas laughed from several feet away. Beneath the video were laughing reactions from people who had eaten at my table, called me family, and kissed Ellie on the cheek when I was present.
“You turned my daughter’s pain into family entertainment...?”
My voice barely rose above a whisper.
That frightened them more than shouting would have.
Three relatives immediately lowered their phones. One of my father’s older cousins looked away. Marcus stood frozen beside me, no longer trying to take his phone back.
Victor pushed himself upright against the broken play platform.
“You’re seeing it wrong.”
I looked at him.
Then at Ellie.
She was curled against my chest with both arms around my neck. Her knees were bruised. One sleeve had slipped enough for me to see another mark along her arm.
I had noticed bruises before.
She told me she fell.
I believed her.
Now I understood why.
Victor pointed toward the phone.
“She needed discipline.”
A few relatives shifted uncomfortably.
I scrolled again.
Another video.
Ellie crawling.
Another.
Lucas sitting on her back.
Another.
My father laughing.
I looked toward the people standing around the lawn.
“How many of you watched this?”
Silence.
“That was not a difficult question.”
Marcus swallowed.
“Valentina—”
I turned toward him.
He stopped.
“How many?”
His eyes dropped.
“Almost everyone in the family chat.”
Ellie tightened her grip around me.
I looked at the screen again.
Twenty-seven members.
Twenty-seven people had received at least one video.
Nobody had called me.
Nobody had stopped him.
Then I found something that made my anger change shape.
The oldest video had been uploaded six weeks earlier.
Six weeks.
May you like
My daughter had been asking me not to leave her at family gatherings for six weeks.
And I had kept telling her Grandpa loved her.
