After you get married, you won’t need to work so hard anymore. Gavin can take over your company, and you can devote yourself to your husband, your home, and, hopefully, giving us a grandchild.

“After you get married, you won’t need to work so hard anymore. Gavin can take over your company, and you can devote yourself to your husband, your home, and, hopefully, giving us a grandchild.”

Naomi smiled as she said it, as if she had just offered me the perfect future.

I smiled too.

But less than an hour later, I would find her other daughter-in-law eating cold rice mixed with water, her arms covered in bruises.

My name is Alyssa Wellman. I was 29 years old and had spent six years building an advertising and event production agency in Atlanta. I had started with a borrowed laptop and two small clients. Now I employed 46 people.

That was why, even though I loved Gavin Herndon, I never understood his insistence that I give everything up after the wedding.

That November afternoon, I went to formally meet his parents for the first time at their residence in Buckhead.

His mother, Naomi, was a retired university professor. His father, Elijah, was a businessman known in certain financial circles. Gavin always described his family as cultured, traditional, and close-knit.

The house seemed to confirm it: immaculate furniture, expensive paintings, a huge library, and perfectly arranged family photographs.

Until Brianna appeared.

She was Damian’s wife, Gavin’s older brother, who was supposedly away on business for several weeks.

Brianna looked about 34. She arrived carrying a tray of coffee, dressed in old sweatpants that looked completely out of place in that wealthy home.

When she set down my cup, her sleeve slipped up.

I saw purple marks around her wrist.

“Did you hurt yourself?” I asked.

Brianna went pale.

“I fell.”

Naomi immediately intervened.

“She’s very clumsy. Brianna has always been like that.”

During dinner, I asked why she wasn’t sitting with us.

Gavin explained that she had gastritis and was following a special diet.

Something didn’t feel right.

I pretended I needed some sauce and went downstairs to the kitchen.

That was where I found her.

Brianna was sitting alone on a plastic stool in front of a chipped plate. There was no special diet. Just cold rice soaked in water and a few vegetables.

When I approached, she hid her arms.

“Brianna… what’s going on here?”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“Nothing. Please, Alyssa. Go back to the dining room.”

“Those marks didn’t come from a fall.”

We heard Naomi calling my name from upstairs.

Brianna began to tremble.

“Go.”

I went back upstairs and pretended everything was normal, but from that moment on, every one of Gavin’s smiles started to look different.

At 8:30, I said goodbye.

While Gavin went to get the car, Brianna walked past me carrying a trash bag. Without looking at me, she took my hand and slipped something between my fingers.

It was a folded piece of paper.

I put it away before Naomi could see it.

I didn’t open it until I got to my apartment.

It only said:

“Come back at 10. Side entrance. Don’t make a sound. You need to see this before you get married.”

By 9:15, I was back in my car.

At exactly 10, I hid behind the side wall of the residence.

Then I heard a thud.

Then a whimper.

I looked through an opening in the gate.

Brianna was kneeling on the floor of a storage room.

Naomi was holding a thin stick.