I shut the front door and locked it securely.

Whatever Patricia knew about the basement would have to wait.

Right now, I needed to learn exactly what my mother had endured while I was gone.

I helped Elena sit in one of the kitchen chairs.

“Mom, please show me your arm.”

“Daniela, honey—”

“Please, Mom.”

After a long hesitation, she slowly pushed her sweater sleeve upward.

Fresh purple bruises encircled her wrist.

Farther along her forearm, I could see older marks that had already begun turning yellow.

“Patricia grabbed my wrist three days ago,” Mom finally confessed, her voice trembling. “Maya spilled some juice on Patricia’s pants by accident, and she blamed me because she said I wasn’t watching the children properly.”

I drew a slow breath, trying desperately to keep my anger under control.

“Was Marcus there when she did it?”

Tears filled my mother’s eyes.

“Yes.”

“What did he do?”

“He said I was making too much of it. Then he told me not to say anything to you.”

I looked toward the window, struggling to comprehend what she was telling me.

“Mom, has Marcus ever been physically rough with you?”

She hesitated, lowering her gaze to the table.

“Mom, please. I need you to tell me.”

Her hand rose slowly toward the bruised area beneath her cheek.

“Two days ago… we had an argument.”

“About what?”

“He wanted me to iron his office pants. I told him that I had come here to take care of the twins, not to do every chore he didn’t want to do.”

She paused, gathering herself.

“He grabbed my shoulder and tried to push me in the direction of the laundry room. I lost my footing and hit my face against a cabinet.”

My husband.

The man I had married, the father of my children, had treated my elderly mother like that.

Before I could speak, my phone began vibrating.

Marcus was calling repeatedly.

Then text messages started appearing on the screen.

“Open that door right now.”

“You can’t just take our kids away.”

“You’re blowing absolutely nothing into a major problem.”

And then came the final message.

“You’re going to regret this.”

I took screenshots of every single message and immediately backed them up to my secure cloud storage.

Outside, Patricia began hammering on the front door.

“This house belongs to our family!”

I turned on the intercom.

“The legal owner is a private trust established by my father before Marcus and I were married.”

Marcus stepped directly in front of the security camera.

“You have a trust of your own?”

And then he asked the question that destroyed whatever faith I still had left in him.

“How much money is in that trust, exactly?”

He hadn’t asked whether Leo and Maya were frightened or comfortable.

He hadn’t asked if my mother was hurt or needed medical attention.

He only wanted to know how much money was involved.

Approximately an hour later, the electronic lock at the entrance made a familiar sound.

A message appeared on the access system.

AUTHORIZATION ACCEPTED: TOM HERRERA, ESQ.

Tom Herrera had been my father’s business attorney for twenty-six years.

Although he was seventy-one now, he still carried the same old leather briefcase and possessed the calm, authoritative presence that had always made people feel they could trust him.

But the moment he saw the injury on my mother’s cheek, he stopped in his tracks.

“Elena…”

Mom burst into tears.

Tom set his briefcase on the kitchen counter.

From inside, he removed a large manila envelope.

I recognized my father’s handwriting instantly.

Across the front were the words:

DANIELA. IF SOMEONE HURTS YOUR MOTHER, READ THIS.

Inside the envelope were certified financial records dating all the way back to 1997.

And as I began examining the pages, one name appeared again and again.

Patricia Salgado.