"Be a good girl. If you keep throwing tantrums, I can't guarantee I'll still marry you and file the paperwork in three years. Remember, your mother is gone. I'm the only family you have left in this world."
My entire body shook with rage.
Once, at my mother's bedside, he had held my hand and sworn he would be my last remaining family, that he would take care of me for the rest of my life.
Now, my loneliness and helplessness had become the very reason he felt free to trample all over me.
Tears were still sliding down my cheeks when my phone buzzed with a new message.
"Miss Fox, there's something I'm not sure I should tell you."
"I have the surveillance footage from the day Elise's incident happened... I think you deserve to know what really went on that day..."
I stared at the video that loaded on my screen, and my body went rigid.
One month ago. Graduation day.
Elise was supposed to be onstage for the tassel-turning ceremony, but she and Benjamin had both vanished.
As the lab's sponsor, I followed the university staff backstage to look for them.
That was when we walked right into Benjamin, rushing out with an unconscious Elise in his arms.