Chapter 1 - The Bone in the Dog Bowl
“Grandpa… I’m hungry.”
Emma’s voice was so weak that Maya almost didn’t recognize it.
Then came the sound of something hard striking metal.
CLANG.
Maya had just stepped through the front entrance when she saw her five-year-old daughter sitting on the polished dining-room floor.
Beside Rocky’s dog bowl.
Holding a bone in both hands.
Eating from it.
For one stunned second, Maya couldn’t move.
The dining table behind Emma was covered with roasted chicken, potatoes, bread, vegetables, and enough food for ten people.
Rocky sat at the head of it like a king.
Emma looked like she hadn’t been allowed near any of it.
“Emma?”
The child’s head snapped up.
“Mommy!”
Maya ran.
She dropped her purse, fell to her knees, and pulled Emma against her chest.
Emma’s little body shook.
“He said I’m not his granddaughter.”
Maya slowly lifted her eyes.
Rocky didn’t look ashamed.
He wiped his mouth with a linen napkin.
“She isn’t.”
Maya stood.
She placed Emma behind her.
“Say that again.”
Rocky leaned back.
“You heard me.”
Maya had swallowed Rocky’s insults for six years.
She had ignored the way he called her a gold digger.
She had stayed quiet when he questioned whether Emma really looked like Daniel.
She had endured his cruel little jokes because Daniel loved his father and because Maya kept telling herself that family relationships could heal.
But this—
Her child on the floor.
Eating from a dog bowl.
Something inside her snapped.
Maya crossed the room.
Her palm struck Rocky’s face so hard his chair twisted sideways.
He stumbled backward into the dining table.
Wood cracked.
Plates crashed.
The entire table collapsed beneath him.
Emma screamed.
Rocky came up from the wreckage with murder in his eyes.
“You’re going to pay for this.”
He grabbed a broken plate.
“Rocky, put it down.”
He swung.
Pain exploded across Maya’s forehead.
She staggered sideways.
Emma shrieked, “MOMMY!”
Warm blood slid toward Maya’s eyebrow.
Then—
BANG.
The front door flew open.
Daniel stood there.
Navy shirt.
Travel bag still hanging from one hand.
His eyes moved from Emma…
to the dog bowl…
to the blood on his wife’s face…
to his father holding half a shattered plate.
Nobody spoke.
Daniel’s travel bag slipped from his hand.
Rocky’s expression changed immediately.
For the first time that afternoon—
the old man looked afraid.
But Maya noticed something else.
A white envelope had fallen from Daniel’s bag.
May you like
Across the front were three words that made Rocky turn pale.
WESTFIELD GENETICS LAB.
