Chapter 1 - The Brick on the Grass
The last thing I saw clearly with both eyes was my father lunging across the lawn.
I did not see the brick until it was already moving toward my face.
The impact exploded through my skull.
My left eye vanished beneath white light. My knees folded, and the pale blue flowers on my dress rushed toward the grass.
Wyatt caught me before my head struck the walkway.
“Sadie. Look at me.”
Blood poured over my eyebrow and filled the corner of my mouth. Somewhere nearby, a brick landed in the grass with a soft, almost ordinary thud.
My mother laughed from the porch.
“Let us see if he still wants you now.”
Her voice reached me through the ringing inside my ears.
Wyatt lowered me carefully, supporting my neck with one hand. His other hand shook as he tried to move my hair away from the wound.
“Call an ambulance.”
No one moved.
My father, Harold Davis, stood six feet away in a dark suit. His chest rose and fell, but his expression was calm.
“He chose the wrong daughter,” he said.
Melanie stepped through the open front door wearing an elegant beige dress.
She looked down at me with a smile that did not reach her eyes.
“You were never the pretty one, Sadie.”
Wyatt lifted his head.
“What did you people do?”
Dad pointed at Melanie.
“She should have been standing beside you. She knows how to represent a successful man.”
“I am marrying Sadie.”
“You are wasting your future.”
Wyatt moved so quickly that Dad barely raised his arms.
He slammed him backward into the rose bushes.
Branches snapped beneath their weight.
Melanie grabbed Wyatt from behind and pulled at his shoulder. He broke free, shoved her aside, and reached into his jacket for his phone.
Dad kicked it from his hand.
The phone skidded across the walkway and broke against the porch step.
“No one calls for help,” he barked.
My mother watched from the porch swing.
She did not look frightened.
She looked satisfied.
That expression told me the attack was not an accident or a sudden loss of control.
They had expected Wyatt to reach for his phone.
They had expected him to fight.
They had expected me to bleed on the lawn.
Wyatt struck Dad across the jaw.
Dad stumbled sideways.
Wyatt dropped beside me and covered my body with his own when Dad reached for the broken brick again.
My mother caught Dad’s sleeve.
“Not again. The first one was enough.”
Wyatt heard her.
So did I.
He stared at both of them.
“You planned this.”
Melanie’s confidence flickered.
My mother pulled her closer, placing herself between Melanie and the street.
I tried to speak.
Only air came out.
Wyatt bent over me.
“Do not move. Help is coming.”
“How?”
He looked past me.
Across the street, our neighbor Audrey Bennett stood beside her mailbox holding a phone with both hands.
She was recording.
Her husband was already speaking to emergency dispatch.
Another man stood near a delivery van at the curb.
A landscaper had frozen beside the side fence.
Two women walking a dog stopped at the corner.
A contractor carrying paint samples stood on the neighboring porch.
Six witnesses.
Six people my family had not noticed because they were too busy watching me fall.
Sirens began in the distance.
Melanie moved toward the broken phone.
Audrey raised her voice from across the street.
“Do not touch anything.”
My mother pointed at her.
“This is a private family matter.”
Audrey kept recording.
“You made it public when Harold used a brick on the front lawn.”
Dad wiped blood from his lip.
“She attacked me first.”
Wyatt stared at him in disbelief.
I could barely lift one arm, but I pointed toward the grass.
The brick remained where it had fallen.
There was no blood on my hands.
No weapon near me.
Only a small white envelope I had carried to dinner.
The envelope contained the date Wyatt and I had chosen for our wedding.
October nineteenth.
We had come to announce it in person.
My parents had asked us to arrive before the other relatives.
Melanie had said she wanted a private conversation first.
Now I understood why.
An ambulance turned onto the street.
Dad looked at my mother.
She gave him one short nod.
He moved toward the open doorway.
Wyatt rose and blocked him.
“You stay here.”
“This is my property.”
“It is now a crime scene.”
The first police cruiser stopped at the curb.
Two officers ran toward us.
My mother immediately changed her face.
The smile disappeared.
She pressed one hand over her chest.
“My daughter fell during a family disagreement.”
Audrey shouted from across the road.
“He hit her with the brick. I recorded it.”
The paramedics knelt around me.
One stabilized my neck while another covered my injured eye.
“Sadie, can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Are you pregnant?”
“No.”
“Any allergies?”
I answered as clearly as I could.
Wyatt remained beside me until an officer pulled him away to photograph the blood on his hands and the damage to his phone.
Melanie began crying without tears.
“I tried to stop them.”
The landscaper shook his head.
“No, you grabbed the fiancé.”
Melanie looked at him for the first time.
The delivery driver stepped forward.
“And you moved the brick beside the porch before the older man picked it up.”
Dad’s expression changed.
The brick had not been lying there by chance.
Melanie had placed it within reach.
My mother glared at her.
The paramedics lifted me onto the stretcher.
As they rolled me toward the ambulance, I looked back at the mansion.
My mother stood beneath the porch light.
Dad remained beside the rose bushes.
Melanie held the skirt of her beige dress away from the blood.
None of them looked at me like family.
Wyatt climbed into the ambulance after the police confirmed he could accompany me.
He took my hand.
“You did nothing wrong.”
“My eye.”
“The doctors will help.”
“They wanted you to leave me.”
His fingers closed around mine.
“They buried themselves.”
The ambulance doors began closing.
Before the mansion disappeared from view, I saw a black sedan parked farther down the street.
A man sat behind the steering wheel.
He was not watching the police.
May you like
He was watching the white envelope containing our wedding date.
Continue to the next part: A stranger leaves the scene carrying the announcement Sadie dropped before her father attacked.
