“I heard what she said.”
He bent close enough that his forehead nearly touched mine.
“I loved you before tonight. I love you now. And I will love you through every surgery, every scar, every nightmare, and every courtroom.”
A tear slipped from my right eye.
It traveled into my hair.
Dr. Hart looked away for a moment, giving us the privacy of silence.
Then she straightened.
“We need imaging immediately. Before that, because this was an assault, I want a forensic nurse to document every injury.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
The nurse arrived carrying a camera, evidence bags, and a stack of forms.
She photographed my face from every angle. The swelling. The cuts. The bruises beginning to rise beneath my skin.
She sealed pieces of my bloodstained dress in a paper bag.
“We’ll preserve everything properly,” she assured me.
“Please keep all of it.”
“We will.”
“And write down what I say.”
The nurse nodded.
“My father attacked me because my fiancé refused to leave me for my sister.”
The sentence sounded impossible when spoken aloud.
Yet every word was true.
While they prepared me for the CT scan, a police officer entered the room. He introduced himself as Detective Aaron Beckett.
He was in his early forties, with tired eyes and a voice that made no promises.
“Ms. Davis, I understand you’re in pain. I’ll keep this brief.”
“My family planned it.”
Wyatt glanced at me.
Detective Beckett pulled a chair closer.
“What makes you believe that?”
“They kept saying I wouldn’t move. My sister said they had asked nicely. My father told Wyatt he had to marry Melanie. And then—”
My voice cracked.
“There was an old man inside the house.”
“What old man?”
“I don’t know. I saw him behind the curtain when the ambulance took me away.”
Detective Beckett wrote it down.
