Chapter 3

The days blurred together in a haze of pain and fear. Andrew had moved me to the guest room—our bedroom held too many memories, he said, too many lies. The irony wasn't lost on me that I was now a prisoner in what had once been my own home.

Each morning brought fresh interrogations. Where was Tommy? Who was I working with? How much money did I want for his return? Andrew's questions came in waves, sometimes shouted, sometimes whispered with deadly calm. I gave him the same answer every time: I didn't know. I hadn't taken his son.

He never believed me.

On the tenth day of my imprisonment, Andrew entered the guest room carrying something that made my heart stop. In his hands was my mother's bracelet—the delicate silver chain with tiny pearls that she'd given me on my sixteenth birthday, just months before the cancer took her.

"You want to play games?" His voice was eerily quiet as he held up the bracelet. "You want to destroy my family?"

"Andrew, please," I whispered, struggling against the zip ties that bound my wrists to the bed frame. "That's all I have left of her."

His laugh was hollow, broken. "And Tommy is all I have left of hope for this family. But you took that away, didn't you?"

Before I could respond, he walked to the dresser and picked up the hammer he'd brought from his workshop. The weight of it looked heavy in his hands, purposeful.

"No," I breathed, understanding flooding through me. "Andrew, no, please—"

The first blow shattered the clasp. Tiny pearls scattered across the hardwood floor like tears. The second blow bent the silver chain beyond recognition. By the third, there was nothing left but twisted metal and broken dreams.

"You destroyed my family first!" he screamed, bringing the hammer down again and again until even the fragments were unrecognizable. "You took my son! You ruined everything!"

I stopped begging. Stopped crying. Something inside me broke along with that bracelet—not my spirit, but my last thread of hope for the man I'd once loved. The Andrew who had protected me in high school, who had promised to love me forever, was truly gone. In his place stood a stranger consumed by rage and addiction, capable of destroying the most precious thing I had left.

When he finally stopped, breathing hard, sweat beading on his forehead, I met his eyes with a calmness that seemed to unnerve him.

"I didn't take Tommy," I said quietly. "But even if I had, even if I was the monster you think I am, that bracelet had nothing to do with any of this. That was just cruelty."

He stared at me for a long moment, something flickering in his expression—doubt, maybe, or the ghost of conscience. But it passed quickly, replaced by the familiar hardness.

"You'll tell me where he is," he said, turning toward the door. "Eventually."

After he left, I stared at the scattered remains of my mother's bracelet. Each broken pearl caught the afternoon light streaming through the window—the same window I'd been studying for days, noting how the old latch didn't quite catch properly when the wind was strong.

That night, during my supervised bathroom break, I worked at the window latch in the guest bathroom with trembling fingers. It was loose already from age and weather. Just a little more pressure, a careful twist, and it would open completely. Andrew's attention had been scattered lately, his focus consumed by phone calls with private investigators and increasingly desperate searches for Tommy.

I had to be patient. I had to wait for the right moment.

Three days later, that moment came. A thunderstorm rolled in during the evening, the kind that made the old house groan and settle. Andrew was in his study, shouting into his phone about leads gone cold and investigators who weren't doing their jobs. His voice carried through the walls, raw with desperation and fury.

The guard he'd posted outside my door had stepped away—I could hear him in the kitchen, probably making coffee. It was now or never.

I slipped into the guest bathroom and worked at the window latch with desperate fingers. The storm provided perfect cover, thunder masking any small sounds I might make. When the latch finally gave way, I nearly sobbed with relief.

The window opened onto the back garden, a drop of about eight feet onto the soft grass below. I squeezed through the narrow opening, my body protesting every movement after weeks of confinement. The rain hit my face like a benediction, washing away tears I didn't realize I'd been crying.

I ran through the storm, my bare feet slipping on wet pavement, my hospital gown soaked within seconds. Every shadow looked like Andrew, every sound like pursuit. But I kept running, muscle memory guiding me through familiar neighborhood streets toward the one place I knew I'd be safe.

Solana's porch light was on when I collapsed against her front door, my fists pounding weakly against the wood. When she opened it and saw me—broken, bleeding, barely recognizable—her face went white with shock.

"Oh my God, Faye," she whispered, pulling me inside. "What did he do to you?"

I couldn't answer. I could only collapse into her arms and finally, finally let myself break completely.