Then she nodded.
“Not directly. But last week, he took my passport and said he would keep it somewhere safe.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“No.”
“And has he ever hurt you?”
“Never.”
She paused.
“Not physically.”
I closed the envelope.
“You’re not going to move into my house because Richard ordered you to. You’re going to move somewhere safe, with help from people who understand what we’re dealing with. And we’re going to make sure you and Sophie are protected before he realizes anything has changed.”
Vesna looked at me as though she had expected hatred and found something she didn’t know how to accept.
“Why are you helping me?”
I thought about the years I had spent defending Richard. I thought about the money he had taken and the lies he had told us both.
“Because I know what it’s like to trust him,” I said. “And because I don’t intend to let him use your daughter to hurt either of us.”
