Chapter 1 - Touch Her Again
“Stay out of this!”
Wyatt’s open hand was already swinging toward his mother’s bruised cheek when Harrison rose from the breakfast table.
The chair shot backward.
Coffee trembled inside the white mugs.
Before Wyatt’s palm could make contact, Harrison caught his wrist inches from Leona’s face.
The room went silent.
Wyatt was twenty-three years old, six feet two, and built like a college linebacker. Harrison was fifty-three and no longer interested in proving how strong he was.
He did not need to.
He stepped between his wife and son, forced Wyatt’s arm down, and drove him backward with one controlled movement.
“Touch her again,” Harrison said quietly.
That was all.
No shouting.
No threat.
But something in his voice made Wyatt stop struggling.
Leona stood beside the black dining chair, one hand gripping its back. A dark mark stretched across her left cheek. Her brown hair was pulled into a loose ponytail. Her shoulders shook once before she forced them still.
Wyatt glanced at the bruise.
Then at the papers on the table.
His confidence flickered.
“She’s lying,” he snapped.
Harrison looked at his wife.
Not at Wyatt.
At Leona.
The bruise was worse in the morning light.
Harrison had noticed it the moment she came downstairs, but he had said nothing. He had simply poured coffee, unfolded the documents, and waited.
He had known Wyatt would return.
He had known the confrontation would happen here.
And for the first time in almost a year, Harrison was prepared.
Without breaking eye contact with his son, he reached beneath the printed pages and pulled out a sealed brown folder.
He placed it in the center of the table.
The silverware rattled.
Wyatt’s face changed.
“What is that?”
Harrison slid the folder toward Leona.
Not toward Wyatt.
Toward her.
“You leave today,” Harrison said.
Wyatt laughed, but the sound came out thin.
“This is my house.”
Leona released the chair.
Slowly, she placed her bruised hand on top of Harrison’s hand.
Then she pulled the folder toward herself.
A document protruded slightly from beneath the flap. Wyatt saw an official seal and a signature line.
His breathing stopped.
Leona placed one finger beneath the sealed edge.
“You should’ve left last night,” she said.
May you like
For the first time since he had moved back home, Wyatt looked afraid.
👉 Wyatt knew the folder could end his control—but he had no idea his parents had been building the case against him for months.
