I awoke instantly. The instinct that had kept me alive during my younger, darker years flared to life. I threw off the silk sheets, grabbed the heavy velvet robe from the armchair, and moved down the sweeping staircase. The pounding didn’t stop; it grew more frantic, accompanied by a muffled, desperate keening sound that froze the blood in my veins.
When I swung the heavy door open, the breath evaporated from my lungs. The world tilted on its axis.
It was Lily.
She was still in her wedding gown, but the pristine, fifty-thousand-dollar silk was a ruined, terrifying canvas. The fabric was torn violently at the shoulder, soaked heavy and dark with rain, and smeared with a horrific, undeniable amount of blood. She was hyperventilating, her delicate frame wracked by violent tremors that shook the rainwater and blood from her hair onto the marble foyer.
“Mom,” she choked out, a wet, ragged sound, before her knees gave out.
I caught her before she hit the floor, the metallic scent of copper and damp silk flooding my senses, triggering a wave of nausea I brutally suppressed. I dragged her inside, my muscles screaming in protest, and slammed the heavy oak door against the raging storm, throwing the deadbolts with shaking, blood-slicked fingers.
Under the harsh, unforgiving glare of the crystal chandelier, the sheer brutality of her condition came into devastating focus. Her left cheekbone was a swollen, grotesque landscape of purple and black, the skin pulled taut and shiny over the bruised bone. Her lower lip was split deeply in two places, oozing a steady trail of crimson down her chin. Her eyes, usually so bright and full of gentle optimism, were blown wide with a hollow, animalistic terror.
“Lily, baby, look at me,” I commanded, my voice dropping an octave, finding a calm I did not feel. I wrapped a heavy cashmere blanket from the sofa around her shivering shoulders, my hands moving with mechanical efficiency while my mind began to detach, floating above the panic.
“He locked the suite,” Lily gasped, choking on a sob that seemed to tear at the shredded lining of her throat. She gripped my forearms, her manicured nails digging into my flesh hard enough to draw blood. “We got to the Grand Plaza. I went to change. When I came out, Preston… he locked the doors. He threw my phone against the wall. And then Beatrice stepped out of the bedroom.”
The air in the room grew completely thin, a vacuum of oxygen. “Beatrice was in your honeymoon suite?” I asked, my voice a hollow, unrecognizable whisper.
Lily nodded frantically, her teeth chattering so hard I feared they would shatter. “She held me down on the floor. Preston tied my wrists with his tie. She… she counted, Mom. She counted every single one. Forty. She slapped me forty times.”
“Why?” The single word scraped against the back of my throat.
“The downtown property,” she stammered, her eyes darting around the foyer as if expecting them to burst through the walls. “My condo. The one you bought me. Preston pulled out a deed transfer. He said if I didn’t sign it over by sunrise, they’d drag me to the balcony. They said they’d throw me over the edge. Beatrice laughed. She said they’d call it a tragic honeymoon suicide, that the pressure of the new money was too much for me.”
