Chapter 7 - Echoes of Betrayal
The air in the narrow storage room turned instantly stifling. Brandon stepped inside, closing the door behind him with a sharp click, trapping me in the enclosed space with only the narrow beam of my phone flashlight illuminating his face.
"I asked you a question, Lauren," he said, his voice terrifyingly calm.
I scrambled backward, pressing my spine against the metal shelving. "Who is Sarah Jenkins, Brandon?"
Brandon looked down at the documents scattered around my feet. His jaw tightened, a muscle ticking beneath his skin. "You shouldn't have been snooping around in here."
"She took out a restraining order against you!" I shouted, holding the police report up between us like a shield. "You assaulted her! And your mother paid her off to keep you out of jail!"
"That was four years ago!" Brandon snapped, his calm demeanor shattering as he stepped closer. "Sarah was crazy! She tried to destroy my career, and my mother handled it! It has nothing to do with us!"
"It has everything to do with us!" I yelled back, tears of anger and fear spilling down my face. "You have a history of violent outbursts! Dr. Lawson saw it today—Hannah feels it! She’s terrified of you because she senses what you're capable of!"
Brandon reached out and grabbed my wrist, twisting it until I dropped the papers. "Don't you ever say that to me again! I am her father! I love her!"
"You're hurting her!" I screamed, pulling against his grip. "Let go of me!"
"You don't know what's good for this family," Brandon hissed, his face inches from mine. "You're unstable, Lauren. Returning to work has made you crazy. Maybe I should talk to Dr. Lawson tomorrow and tell him about your post-partum depression. Let's see who the courts believe—a respected marketing director or a mother having a mental breakdown."
The sheer coldness of his threat froze me to the bone. He had thought this through. He was prepared to paint me as unfit, to use the system to lock me away and keep Hannah under his control.
With a surge of maternal adrenaline, I slammed my free heel down onto his foot with all the weight I could muster.
Brandon bellowed in pain, loosening his grip for a split second.
I shoved him back into the shelving units, sending boxes crashing down, and sprinted out of the storage room into the main garage, locking the heavy deadbolt behind me to trap him inside.
"Lauren! Open this damn door!" he screamed, slamming his fist against the heavy wood.
I didn't answer. I ran into the house, bolted up the stairs to the nursery, scooped a sleeping Hannah out of her crib, grabbed my purse, and ran out to my car.
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As I pulled out of the driveway into the pitch-black Phoenix night, I saw the garage lights flashing through the rearview mirror. Brandon was trying to break out.
I had no safe house, no plan, and nowhere to go—except to the one person who knew the whole terrible truth.
