I was one step away from catching him in bed at Westfield Mall.
The blue pills in the drawer had already gone down by several tablets. He’d only been with me once this month—those pills must have gone to Isabella.
I decided to let him have her.
The next morning, when I went to Divorce Court, I got stuck in traffic. While waiting, I received a call from an unknown number.
“Hello, are you Sophia Miller? I have your daughter. If you’re smart, come here. Otherwise, I can’t promise I won’t sell her overseas.”
The voice was cold and male.
He put my daughter on the line.
“Mommy, help me.”
“Don’t hurt her, please! I’ll come right away,” I panicked. I immediately tried calling Daniel, but his phone was off. He hadn’t come home the night before. I didn’t know if he had stayed at Isabella’s or at Margaret’s.
“Damn it. Both his and Margaret’s phones are off.”
I had no choice but to go rescue Lily myself.
When I arrived, a gang of homeless-looking men surrounded me.
“Well, well. I knew you couldn’t abandon your daughter.”
I hadn’t realized they would recognize me. Was this revenge?
“Mommy, help me! Don’t let them hurt you!”
“Let her go!!” I shouted angrily.
Seeing my eight-year-old tied up, my eyes filled with tears.
“Sure, we can let her go—if you play with us for a while,” the gang leader, a greasy older man with yellow teeth, sneered.
“Play what? I’ll call the police! Kidnapping a child in broad daylight is a federal crime!”
The gang leader laughed. “I’ve already gone this far. You think I’m afraid of you calling the cops? Get on your knees.”
I was forced to kneel, praying that Daniel might see my texts and call the police. Otherwise, Lily and I could really be trafficked overseas like in some movie. The thought made my blood run cold.
But they didn’t stop. They beat me like a dog. A crowd of them punched and kicked me. My nose bled heavily, but I shielded Lily’s small body. I took the blows myself, until one of them hit me hard on the head with a blunt object.
When I woke up, I was horrified to find one of my legs gone.
I wasn’t dead. I’d been amputated.
I wanted to scream, but my throat was blocked. From the crying and screaming during the attack, my voice had broken.
Where was I? Was this overseas? Had I already been trafficked?
Where was my daughter—where was Lily?
Panicking, I looked around. Then I saw the sign on the door: St. Mary’s Hospital.
I looked out the window. It was pitch black night, but I could recognize Broadway Avenue.
I hadn’t been trafficked overseas. Relief washed over me—but fear for Lily returned immediately.
Before I could reach for my phone, I heard whispers from the next room.
“Daddy, how was my acting? I tricked Mommy, didn’t I? I was awesome, right?”
“Perfect.”
“But Daddy, Mommy’s leg was amputated. How could you bear that? She’s basically disabled now. Just because she put a GPS tracker in your scooter and discovered your movements, you had her beaten like that? How will she live from now on?”
To my shock, it was Daniel’s voice.
“Lily, you don’t understand. I had no choice. If she exposed my GPS history, both Isabella and I would be ruined. We have reputations, families. She insisted on divorce, forcing me to go to Family Court tomorrow morning. If she exposed me, I’d be humiliated. What choice did I have? I could only ask you to help me.”
