He sla:pped me six times in front of his mistress, threw me out into the rain, and left me broken on the street. I called my father with one request: show him no mercy.

“Send me your location.”

I did.

His next words were colder than the storm.

“Listen carefully, Claire. Do not go back inside. Do not speak to him. Do not answer him if he calls. I am sending security and a doctor.”

I closed my eyes.

“Dad…”

“Yes?”

“Show no mercy.”

For the first time that night, he no longer sounded like my father.

He sounded like a judge delivering a sentence.

“Then mercy is over.”

Forty minutes later, two black SUVs pulled up beside me.