I felt the blood on my split lip as I smiled. It was a real smile this time. Cold and victorious.
“Yes, Officer Jenkins,” I said clearly. “My husband assaulted me. And I can show you exactly how he did it.”
The hospital smelled of harsh bleach, sterile iodine, and the metallic tang of fear. But as the heavy dose of intravenous morphine finally hit my bloodstream, the agonizing fire in my leg dulled to a distant, manageable ache.
They had set my tibia with surgical steel pins. I was casted from my ankle to my upper thigh.
Through the haze of the narcotics, I knew that David was currently setting his own trap with the sheer force of his arrogance. While I was in surgery, he had been taken to the precinct for questioning. He told the detectives I was drunk and unhinged. The court-ordered blood test drawn at the hospital completely destroyed that narrative; my system was entirely clean.
He then pivoted, claiming I had attacked him physically, and he had only restrained me in self-defense.
He didn’t know about the vault.
I woke up fully the next morning to the sight of my father sitting in the uncomfortable vinyl chair beside my bed. His heavy coat was draped over Emma, who was fast asleep, curled into a tiny, peaceful ball against his side.
William looked up from a thick manila folder he was reading. He looked ten years older, the exhaustion etched deeply into his features.
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