“Dad, my husband hit me with a baseball bat.” My daughter was crying so hard she could barely speak when I heard her husband shouting in the background. Then the phone was ripped from her hand and the call went dead. I was twenty minutes away, but the man I sent to reach her first was the last person her husband expected to find racing toward his front door.

I sat in a vinyl armchair beside Lena’s hospital bed while an orthopedic surgeon reviewed her X-rays on a illuminated screen mounted on the wall. Derek stood near the window, his arms crossed over his chest, watching the door like a silent sentinel.

"It's a clean nightstick fracture to the ulna," Dr. Vance explained, pointing a pen at the sharp, dark line running across the bone image on the screen. "It's a classic defensive wound. She raised her forearm to protect her head when the blow came."

My throat tightened. "Does she need surgery?"

"Fortunately, no," Dr. Vance replied, turning toward us. "The bone alignment remains good. We’ll place her in a hard fiberglass cast for six weeks, followed by physical therapy. But the soft tissue bruising around her shoulder and wrist will take time to heal."

Lena lay under the warm hospital blankets, her left arm encased in a bright white cast. The sedative the doctors had given her had softened the sharp edge of her panic, but her eyes remained wide, fixed on the doorway as if expecting Travis to burst in at any moment.

"Dad?" she whispered softly.

I leaned in, taking her uninjured right hand in both of mine. "I'm right here, baby."

"Is he... is he in jail?"

"He's in a holding cell at the precinct," I told her firmly. "The judge set a temporary no-contact order, and Detective Miller is filing felony assault with a deadly weapon, domestic battery, and grand forgery charges against him."

A tear slipped down her cheek, soaking into the white pillowcase. "I trusted him, Dad. We were married for three years. How could he do this?"

"Because he's a coward who hid behind a mask, sweetie," Derek spoke up gently from the window, walking over to stand at the foot of her bed. "He picked on someone he thought was defenseless. But he forgot that you have a family that would tear the world apart for you."

Lena looked at her uncle, offering a small, weak smile through her tears. "Thank you, Uncle Derek. If you hadn't broken down that door..."

"I'd break down a hundred doors for you, kiddo," Derek said, touching her foot gently over the blanket. "Always."

Just then, the room door opened, and Gabriel Vance—my personal corporate attorney and one of the sharpest legal minds in the state—walked inside carrying a leather briefcase.

"David, Lena," Gabriel said, offering a solemn nod. "I came as soon as you called."

"Gabriel," I said, standing up. "Tell me where we stand legally."

Gabriel set his briefcase on a side table, opening it to reveal several court filings already drafted. "I've already spoken with the Assistant District Attorney assigned to the case. Given the physical severity of the injury, the weapon involved, and the recorded phone call, bail will likely be set extremely high—at least two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

"Can he pay it?" I asked.

"Not a chance," Gabriel smiled thin, lethal smile. "His bank accounts were frozen an hour ago under an emergency civil injunction I filed on Lena's behalf. His offshore gambling profiles have been flagged for international money laundering investigations. Travis is completely broke."

"What about the house?" Lena asked quietly.

"The house is in foreclosure due to the fraudulent mortgage," Gabriel explained softly. "But David's estate trust has already agreed to purchase the mortgage debt directly from the bank tomorrow morning. The house will be transferred entirely into Lena's name, free and clear of all encumbrances."