Then he turned his monitor toward her.
High-resolution images filled the screen. Not of her unborn child’s tiny fingers or beating heart—but of Ellie’s back.
Parallel welts. Fresh, angry red lines layered over older, silvery scars. Some raised, some scabbed. Arranged with chilling precision, like someone had taken a ruler and a switch and decided exactly how much pain a six-year-old could endure before she learned to stay quiet.
“She told me,” Dr. Chen said, voice low but steady, “‘Daddy hits me when Mom is away.’”
The words didn’t register at first. They bounced off Lena’s skull like pebbles against glass. Then they sank in—deep, jagged, tearing through every assumption she’d ever made about her life.
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