I almost laughed.
Home.
That word had become complicated.
“I’m safe,” I told her. “Now.”
A police officer took my statement. I told him everything. Madeline’s order. Ethan’s first slap. Her command for the second. Ethan obeying. The guests watching. The blood. The call.
“Do you want to press charges?” the officer asked.
I looked at my reflection in the dark window.
One side of my face was swelling.
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
The old Chloe might have hesitated.
The old Chloe might have worried about Ethan’s future.
But the old Chloe had spent a year folding herself smaller to fit into a family that enjoyed stepping on her.
She was gone.
By morning, the story was everywhere.
Not because I leaked it.
Because rich people with phones have no self-control.
A ten-second video of Ethan slapping me spread first. Then came photos of the tow trucks. Then the clip of Leo calling me Madam President. By noon, every business blog in New York had a version of the headline.
HAMILTON CONSTRUCTION HEIR SLAPS WIFE AT MANSION PARTY — WIFE REVEALED AS SECRET IVY CAPITAL PRESIDENT.
By dinner, the tabloids found the motel.
The Hamiltons were photographed leaving a discount motel near the highway, wearing the same wrinkled clothes from the night before. Madeline tried to cover her face with a scarf. Walter looked twenty years older. Ethan shoved a camera away and nearly got himself arrested.
