Chapter 1 - The Thirty Blows
The first thing I did after my son hit me thirty times was call a locksmith.
The second thing I did was call my attorney.
And the third thing I did was something Julian Vance would never forgive me for.
I stopped protecting him.
My hands were still shaking when I pulled into the parking lot of a twenty-four-hour pharmacy on Wilshire Boulevard.
Blood had dried along my lower lip.
My left cheek felt twice its normal size.
Every time I swallowed, something sharp moved beneath my jaw.
I looked at myself in the rearview mirror.
For a moment, I hardly recognized the woman staring back.
Sixty-eight years old.
Gray hair coming loose from its careful bun.
A torn collar.
A bruised face.
And thirty years of excuses finally stripped away.
My phone vibrated.
Julian.
I watched his name flash across the screen.
Then I declined the call.
A second later, a message appeared.
You embarrassed me tonight. Don't come back until you're ready to apologize.
I stared at those words.
Then I laughed.
It hurt so badly that I stopped almost immediately.
He had beaten his own mother in front of eight people.
And somehow, in his mind, I was the one who owed an apology.
I placed the phone on the passenger seat beside Thomas's damaged brass compass.
My late husband had carried that compass through our poorest years.
When Julian was little, Thomas would sit with him at the kitchen table and explain how a compass always pointed north.
"People don't work that way," Thomas used to say.
"They can point themselves anywhere they choose."
I had spent thirty years convincing myself that Julian was simply lost.
Tonight, I finally understood.
He knew exactly where he was going.
He simply didn't care whom he hurt along the way.
I picked up my phone and called Daniel Mercer.
Daniel had been my attorney for almost twenty years.
He answered on the fourth ring.
"Margaret?"
"Daniel, I need you to listen carefully."
Something in my voice made him stop.
"What happened?"
"Julian assaulted me."
Silence.
Then his voice hardened.
"Where are you?"
"Wilshire Boulevard."
"Are you safe?"
"For the moment."
"Are you injured?"
"Yes."
"Then you need medical attention and a police report."
"I know."
"Margaret, what did he do?"
I looked down at the compass.
"He hit me thirty times."
Daniel swore under his breath.
I had never heard him do that before.
"Go to Cedars-Sinai," he said.
"I'll meet you there."
"Daniel?"
"Yes?"
"Bring the property documents."
Another silence.
"The Beverly Hills house?"
"All of them."
"Margaret, are you sure?"
I closed my eyes.
I remembered Julian's little hand wrapped around my finger.
His first day of school.
His graduation.
The day he called me crying because his first business had failed.
The night I transferred two million dollars to keep him out of bankruptcy.
And the moment his fist struck my face.
"I'm sure."
Daniel exhaled.
"Then we need to discuss something before you make any decisions."
"What?"
"The trust."
I straightened.
"What about it?"
"Julian has been asking questions."
My stomach tightened.
"What kind of questions?"
"Questions about who really owns the mansion."
I looked through the windshield at the empty street.
"And?"
Daniel's voice dropped.
"He contacted someone at the county recorder's office last week."
I felt a chill.
"Why?"
"That's what I intend to find out."
May you like
Then he said something that changed the entire night.
"Margaret, I think your son has already tried to sell your house."
