Chapter 1 - The Wedding That Stopped
Maisie Grant was already on the marble floor when Graham heard her scream.
His five-year-old daughter was sobbing, her pale pink dress twisted beneath her as Sloane Carter dragged her across the wedding foyer by a short restraint chain fastened at her neck.
“Cry louder. No one is coming to save trash like you.”
The front door burst open.
Graham stopped dead.
He was wearing the tuxedo he was supposed to marry Sloane in less than an hour.
For one terrible second, he could not understand what he was seeing.
Then he moved.
He crossed the foyer, struck Sloane hard enough to knock her away from Maisie, and dropped immediately beside his daughter.
His hands shook as he broke the small lock.
Maisie grabbed him.
“Daddy… she does this whenever you’re away.”
Whenever.
Not today.
Not once.
Whenever.
Graham pulled Maisie against his chest.
His gaze moved toward Sloane.
She was trying to stand.
He grabbed the loose chain in blind rage and stepped toward her.
“You tortured my daughter.”
Sloane’s face finally showed fear.
“You’re done for—”
Then Maisie cried behind him.
Graham stopped.
He looked at the chain in his hand.
Then dropped it.
He would not make his daughter watch him become what Sloane would later claim he was.
Instead, Graham called security.
Then police.
The wedding guests gathering in the ballroom began spilling toward the foyer.
Sloane suddenly screamed that Graham had attacked her.
That Maisie was violent.
That the restraint had been necessary.
Graham ignored her.
He was looking at the luggage beside the entrance.
Two large honeymoon suitcases.
And one tiny pink suitcase.
Maisie’s.
Graham had never packed it.
He opened it.
Inside were Maisie’s clothes.
Her medication.
Her favorite stuffed rabbit.
Her passport.
And a sealed envelope from a private child-placement service in Vermont.
The admission date was today.
May you like
The signature authorizing Maisie’s transfer looked exactly like Graham’s.
He had never signed it.
