Everyone in town called my father a rabid dog. And my mother held his leash. He was a mob enforcer. She was a police detective. She told him she couldn't love a man on the wrong side of the law. So he went undercover and brought the whole organization down with him. While he was in prison, my mother was targeted for revenge. They tortured her for three days and three nights. She never broke. So they injected something directly into her brain. It turned her into a psychopath. When my father found out, he didn't say a word — but that same night, he broke out. He put over a thousand cuts into the men who had hurt her, then turned himself in again. He earned his way out after that. From convict to criminal investigator. He married my mother. They had me. Everyone called it a love story for the ages. Then a beautiful woman showed up at our house. She stood there, visibly pregnant, and looked down at me. "Your mother is mentally ill. Your father has had enough of her." "I'm going to be your new mom. And I'll give you a little brother." My mother heard every word. One second she was perfectly still. The next, she had a knife. She cut open the woman's stomach. She dropped something at my feet, then looked at me with the softest smile I had ever seen. "Don't worry, baby. Mommy won't let anyone threaten your place."
When my father burst through the door, Celeste had already passed out from the pain. "Vera." His voice was ice. "You went too far this time." He scooped Celeste up and left for the hospital without another word. Two hours later, he came back. My mother was still on the couch, exactly where he'd left her. Eyes empty. Somewhere far away. He filled a basin with water and cleaned the blood from her hands and face, one careful stroke at a time. "Get changed. You're coming with me to apologize to Celeste." My mother came back to life. She smiled. "Dream on." "Vera!" His patience snapped. He slapped her across the face. "Her father is my direct superior. One word from Commissioner Quinn and my career is finished. My life is finished! So you are going to—" "Don't you dare touch my mother!" I threw myself at him and bit down on his hand as hard as I could. I tasted blood almost immediately, iron flooding my mouth. His other hand closed around my jaw. He pressed his fingers in. I heard a crack, and the pain was blinding. He'd dislocated my jaw. I had no choice but to let go. He wiped his hand clean with a tissue. "Vera, you've raised quite a daughter." He looked at my mother. "But do you understand what you've done? Celeste will never be able to have children again." "She was barely twenty years old. She was just teasing you, and you did that to her. How ironic, for a former cop." My stomach dropped at that last word. The worst thing anyone could do to my mother was remind her of who she used to be. She had been brilliant once. Decorated. Respected. Now she was mentally ill, living like something trapped in the walls of this house. She couldn't walk out the front door without my father's permission. Sure enough — her eyes went red. A sharp, terrible sound tore out of her throat. She grabbed the fruit knife off the table and lunged at him. "I'm not going anywhere! I'm not apologizing! Don't you even think about it!" But she was never a match for him physically. He had the knife down and her wrists cuffed within seconds. He sat on top of her and made a phone call. "Madam is having an episode. Open the greenhouse." The color drained from my mother's face. She thrashed, screaming, "Not the greenhouse — don't take me there — let go of me—" I grabbed the back of his jacket, sobbing. "Daddy, please. Please don't send her to the greenhouse. Please." He pinched my face in one hand. His smile was cold. "Ruby, your mother always said — if you do something wrong, you face the consequences."
My mom liked flowers very much. So my father built the greenhouse for her. When she first saw it, she cried from happiness. Every flower inside — they had chosen together, grown together. It was the only love letter they'd ever written together. Every flower in it was a vow. Then his enemies destroyed it. The year Dad turned himself in, he handed over enough evidence to bring down the biggest criminal organization in the city. The whole network collapsed. He was the one who'd delivered them — but he wasn't clean himself. He still had to serve time. Prison politics were complicated, and Dad had made too many enemies. To protect him, the authorities buried his identity and transferred him to a facility out of state. The organization wanted to know which prison. So they took Mom. They locked her in the greenhouse. Over a dozen men, taking turns to torture her. They pulled her hair out by the roots. Knocked her teeth out one by one. Ran current through her body again and again for three days and three nights. She didn't say a single word for three days and nights. It was only when a piece of her flesh tore away that they realized she was pregnant. They forced her to consume the remains of her unborn child. Then they injected something directly into her brain. When her colleagues finally found her, she wasn't the same person anymore. Her condition had fluctuated ever since. A doctor once said the best treatment would be desensitization therapy — in the greenhouse itself, confronting the fear at its source. My father had tried once. She collapsed before she even reached the door — beating her head against the wall, her fingernails tearing into his throat. He never took her back. He couldn't stand to see her like that. But now he was taking her back for someone else. She broke down before they even reached the door. When she screamed, he gagged her. When she fought, he bound her. The men in white coats strapped her into the chair and began the treatment. They turned the current to its highest setting. Her body went rigid. Saliva and tears ran down her face and neck. Every sound she made landed somewhere in my chest. I dropped to my knees in front of my father and pressed my forehead to the floor. "Please stop hurting her." "I'll go. I'll apologize to Celeste myself. Just please stop." He had made up his mind. Nothing I did reached him. I couldn't take it anymore. I ran to my mother and tried to pull the electrodes off her body. The current threw me back the moment I touched them. I was numb all over. I got up and reached for her again. Once. Twice. Three times. Then my father called out for them to stop. I thought he had finally felt something. I turned around — and saw that it was my mother who had raised her hands. Both of them, in surrender. We all understood. She had given in. She would go and apologize. Half an hour later, my father helped her change her clothes. He brought me along, and the three of us went to the hospital together. My mother stood at Celeste's bedside and bowed her head. "I'm sorry, Celeste. I shouldn't have hurt you." Celeste looked past her to my father. "That's how you're letting her apologize to me?" "What do you want from her?" he asked. "She took my uterus," Celeste said. "A real apology means she loses hers too." "She doesn't have one," my father said. "She hemorrhaged giving birth to Ruby. They removed it to save her life." The memory passed across his face like a shadow. He looked away. "Anything else — she'll do." "Alright." Celeste thought for a moment, then smiled. "Then I want her on all fours. Crawling. Barking like a dog while she apologizes." She tilted her head toward me. "And Ruby too." My father's jaw tightened. He said nothing. Which meant yes. Fury shot straight to the top of my head. "You're the one who provoked my mother first. If she owes you an apology, then shouldn't you—" My mother cut me off. "I'll do it," she said calmly. "But not Ruby." She stepped toward Celeste. "Let my daughter go, and I'll tell you a secret about my husband." Celeste loved my father. Anyone could see it. She agreed without hesitating. My mother leaned in close, lips near Celeste's ear. But she didn't say a word. She bit down — and kept biting. Then she pulled a knife from somewhere and drove it straight into the artery on the side of Celeste's neck. Blood sprayed hot across my face. My father tore them apart, eyes wild. My mother had taken Celeste's ear off. He held Celeste against him, soaked in red, and looked at my mother with something I had never seen in his face before. "Vera." Just her name. Like a warning. "You wait."
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