The night before I was supposed to become a second lieutenant, my husband smashed a steel crowbar into my legs and sent me crashing down the stairs while his mother watched without lifting a finger. But three days later, lying helpless in a hospital bed, I saw a bill dated before the attack and realized something far more terrifying: Victor hadn’t lost control that night. He had planned it.

Victor arrived forty minutes later.

I heard his car tires screech against the gravel driveway, followed by the heavy, violent slam of the vehicle door.

He didn't walk into the house; he burst through the front door like a storm.

"Where is she?!" he roared in the hallway.

"In the guest room!" Patricia cried out. "The captain was in there for twenty minutes, Victor! He had a recorder!"

The door to my room flew open, crashing against the wall so hard the drywall cracked behind it.

Victor stood in the threshold. His neck tie was loosened, his hair disheveled, his eyes bloodshot and wide with a terrifying, unhinged rage.

He strode across the floor, grabbed the wooden bed rail, and shook it violently.

"What did you say to him?!" Victor screamed, his face turning dark purple. "What did you tell that military bastard?!"

I sat propped against my pillows, looking at him with absolute, cold silence. I didn't flinch. I didn't blink.

"Answer me!" he roared, reaching out to grab my collar, pulling my face within inches of his.

"I told him the truth, Victor," I said, my voice steady, flat, and devoid of fear. "I told him you hit me with a crowbar. I told him about the receipt from October twelfth."

Victor’s grip on my shirt tightened until the fabric tore. A cold, bitter laugh burst from his throat.

"You think a recording saves you?" he sneered, his breath hot against my cheek. "You think some captain is going to ruin my life over a crippled woman's story?"

He shoved me back against the mattress.

"Patricia!" Victor called out without turning around. "Pack her things. We're moving her to the cabin in Lakeview tonight."

My blood ran cold.

The Lakeview cabin was an isolated property three hours north, sitting deep in the woods without cell service or nearby neighbors. If they took me there, Captain Vance's warrant on Thursday morning would find an empty room.

"Victor, no," Patricia said nervously from the doorway. "If the police come here looking for her—"

"We'll tell them she had a medical relapse and was transferred to a private care facility!" Victor snapped, turning to glare at his mother. "Do you want to go to prison, Mother? Do you want federal auditors going through Dad's old accounts?!"

Patricia went pale. She nodded slowly. "I'll get the van."

Victor turned back to me, a sickening smile spreading across his face.

"You wanted to be a soldier, Elena," he whispered, leaning over the bed. "Now you get to experience an offshore exile."

He turned his back to me to reach for the wheelchair folded against the far wall.

My right hand reached silently under the edge of the mattress.

My fingers closed around the tiny black panic button Captain Vance had left me.