My Father S:mash:ed a Brick Into My Face After My Fiancé Refused to Leave Me for My Sister, and My Mother Just Laughed. “Let's See If He Still Loves You Now.” I Didn't Scream. At the Hospital, I Asked Them to Preserve the Evidence, Never Imagining That Six Witnesses and an Old Will Would Destroy Them.

The visitation room of the Franklin County Correctional Center was a bleak, sterile space divided by thick panes of bulletproof glass and scuffed stainless-steel counters.

Sadie sat on a swivel stool on one side of the glass, wearing a simple beige cashmere sweater, her left eye uncovered for the first time. Beneath her eye, a faint, dark pink scar curved elegantly along her cheekbone—a permanent mark of her survival, but one that Dr. Thorne had confirmed would fade into a fine line over time.

Beside her sat Wyatt, his hand firmly resting on her back.

On the other side of the glass, the heavy steel door clicked open.

Brenda Davis stepped inside, escorted by a female corrections officer.

The woman sitting down on the opposite side of the glass looked nothing like the proud, arrogant mother who had laughed on the porch six days ago. Brenda’s manicured hair was wild, greasy, and unwashed. Her face was pale, sunken, and lined with severe anxiety. She wore an oversized orange jumpsuit, her wrists secured to a waist chain.

She picked up the plastic telephone receiver with shaking, bruised hands, looking at Sadie through the glass with eyes full of desperate, panicked tears.

Sadie slowly picked up her receiver.

"Sadie!" Brenda sobbed into the phone, her voice cracking through the small speaker. "Oh my God, Sadie, baby! Look at what they're doing to us! They have me in a cell with four women! The food is terrible, Sadie! They took my clothes, my phone, everything!"

Sadie listened in absolute silence, her expression completely unreadable.

"Sadie, please," Brenda begged, her face pressed against the glass. "You have to tell the prosecutor to drop the charges! It was all your father! You know how Gregory is! He forced me to sign those papers! He forced me to go along with the money! I didn't want to hurt you, baby! I'm your mother!"

"My mother stood on the porch and laughed while my blood was pooling on the sidewalk," Sadie said. Her voice was ice—cold, smooth, and entirely unbothered.

Brenda flinched as if struck. "I... I was in shock, Sadie! I didn't know what I was doing! I was terrified of Gregory!"

"You weren't terrified of him when you took my trust fund money to buy your diamond bracelets, Brenda," Sadie pointed out calmly. "You weren't terrified when you bought Melanie a $60,000 BMW using money meant for my college education while I worked three jobs to pay off student loans."

"Sadie, please!" Brenda cried out, fat tears rolling down her unwashed cheeks. "Melanie is crying herself to sleep in her cell every night! She's only twenty-three! She can't go to prison, Sadie! It will ruin her life!"

"Melanie stood on that porch, looked down at me bleeding on the ground, and said, 'I told you she wouldn't move,'" Sadie reminded her, her eye narrowing with lethal intensity. "She didn't care if I lived or died. She only cared that Wyatt wouldn't look at her."

At the mention of his name, Wyatt leaned into the frame of the glass, his dark eyes locking onto Brenda with absolute disgust.

"You tried to force me to marry Melanie so your family could keep stealing Sadie's inheritance," Wyatt said coldly into his own receiver. "You ruined your own lives out of pure, pathetic greed. And now you're going to pay for every single cent, and every single drop of blood."

"Sadie!" Brenda screamed, banging her cuffed hands against the glass. "You can't do this to your own family! We raised you! We gave you a roof over your head!"

"With my money," Sadie corrected her sharply. "You lived in my house. You ate food bought with my trust fund. You drove cars paid for by my grandfather's hard work. You were never my family, Brenda. You were parasites."

Sadie slowly stood up from the stool, smoothing down her sweater.

"Sadie, wait! Don't leave me!" Brenda begged frantically, her voice rising to a shrill screech. "Where am I supposed to go when bail is denied?! What about the house?!"

Sadie leaned close to the glass, looking down at her weeping mother.

"The house on Oak Street belongs to me now, Brenda," Sadie whispered into the receiver. "The court transferred the title this morning. And tomorrow at ten o'clock, the demolition crew arrives."

Brenda’s eyes widened in sheer, utter horror. "No... no! My furniture! My garden! My home!"

"It was never your home," Sadie said.

Sadie hung up the receiver, turning her back on her mother’s hysterical screams as the corrections officer forced Brenda back into the holding corridor.