“What started six months ago?”
“It started with insults. Then she started breaking my things—my video game console, my notebooks, a soccer trophy you gave me. She said they were accidents. My dad believed her. Then she started hitting me. Slaps, shoves. Once she locked me in the basement all afternoon because I said I wanted to come see you.”
My heart broke into a thousand pieces.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because I was afraid that if I told you, my dad would be more angry with you. I thought that if I put up with it a little longer, things would get better. But today… today was different. I saw something in her eyes, Grandma. I realized that she wants me to disappear. She wants to push me away from you. She wants you to see me as a problem. She wants my dad to see me that way, too.”
Spencer finished filling out the papers and handed them to me. I signed without reading, trusting him. Then he stood up.
“I’m going to call your son to also sign the release of the minor. Wait here.”
He left the office. Ethan and I were left alone. I hugged him, this time even tighter. I felt his body relax against mine, as if for the first time in hours he could breathe easy.
“Forgive me, my boy. Forgive me for not realizing sooner.”
“It’s not your fault, Grandma. It’s my dad who didn’t want to see.”
He was right. But that didn’t make it hurt any less.
The door opened. Rob entered alone. He didn’t even look at me. He walked up to the desk, took the pen Spencer extended to him, and signed the papers with quick, jerky movements, as if every second in there was hurting him.
“That’s it,” he said dryly. “Can I go?”
“Rob,” I said, standing up. “We need to talk.”
“I have nothing to talk about with you,” he replied without turning around. “You made your choice. You chose to believe him instead of my wife.”
“Your wife? What about your son? When did your own son stop mattering to you?”
He finally looked at me, and what I saw in his eyes chilled my blood. There was no love. There was no guilt. There was just… nothing. A void I didn’t recognize.
“My son attacked my wife. The evidence is there. Chelsea has the bruises. He has a history of bad behavior at school.”
“What history?” Ethan exploded. “That’s a lie. I’ve never had problems at school.”
“You were suspended last week for fighting with a classmate.”
“Because that classmate was bothering a girl. He was harassing her and I defended her. The principal congratulated me after speaking with the witnesses.”
Rob didn’t answer. He simply turned around and left the office, closing the door with a loud bang.
I stood there, feeling every piece of hope I had of getting my son back crumble.
Spencer put a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Elellanena.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I replied, wiping away a tear that had escaped without permission. “He made his choice. Now I’m going to make mine.”
I took Ethan’s hand.
“Let’s go home.”
We left the precinct into the cold early morning. Chelsea and Rob had already left. On the empty street, under the orange glow of the streetlights, I stopped for a moment. Ethan looked at me.
“What are we going to do, Grandma?”
I looked into his eyes—those eyes that so resembled his mother’s. Good. Noble. Incapable of lying.
“We are going to prove the truth, my boy. And we are going to make her pay for every tear she made you shed. Because Chelsea made a mistake tonight—a mistake that will cost her everything. She messed with my grandson. And no one—absolutely no one—hurts my family without me doing something about it.”
Commander Elellanena Stone was back, and this time there was no retirement that could stop me.
What secret was Chelsea hiding? Why so much hatred toward an innocent boy? The truth was darker than I imagined.
We arrived at my house when the sun was barely beginning to peek out between the buildings. Ethan walked silently beside me, dragging his feet from fatigue and pain. I lived in a modest apartment in Greenwich Village, a third floor without an elevator that I had bought with my life savings. It wasn’t luxurious, but it was mine. Every piece of furniture, every dish, every memory on those walls belonged to me.
I opened the door and turned on the lights. The familiar smell of coffee and cinnamon greeted me. I always left a stick of cinnamon on the stove so the house would smell like home.
