Chapter 1 - Obey Me or Walk Out
The coffee struck my face before I understood Arthur had lifted the mug.
One second, I was sitting at the breakfast table.
The next, burning liquid ran across my cheek, jaw, and cream silk blouse.
I screamed and stumbled backward.
The chair crashed against the tile.
Arthur remained standing beside the table, still holding the empty white mug.
“Obey me or walk out.”
His voice was calm.
That frightened me more than if he had shouted.
Across from us, his sister Brooke took a slow sip of orange juice.
“All this over a bank card?” she said. “You always make everything dramatic, Eleanor.”
My skin burned so violently that my vision blurred.
I raised one hand toward my face but stopped before touching it.
Arthur watched me struggle to stand.
He did not apologize.
He did not reach for a towel.
He pointed the mug toward me like a warning.
“Give Brooke the card, or leave this house.”
The card belonged to a private account my late father had created before his death.
Brooke wanted forty thousand dollars for a beauty studio deposit.
I had refused because three suspicious transfers had already been linked to businesses carrying her name.
Arthur called my refusal selfish.
Then he threw the coffee.
I looked at the man I had loved for eight years.
“You just made this legal.”
For the first time, uncertainty moved across his face.
He slammed the mug onto the table.
“Don’t threaten me.”
I twisted my wedding ring once around my finger.
Then I walked out without another word.
May you like
Arthur believed I was going to the hospital to calm down.
I was going to turn eight years of excuses into evidence.
