Each slight was wrapped in silk and delivered with a smile, making me question whether I was being oversensitive or if she really was systematically dismantling my relationship with my son.
I chose to give her the benefit of the doubt. That was my first mistake.
My second mistake was the wedding gift.
Twenty-two million dollars. The liquefied fruit of thirty years of eighteen-hour days, failed relationships sacrificed for my career, and a social life that consisted entirely of business dinners. I’d planned to present it as my final gesture of love—a foundation that would let Michael and Sabrina build whatever life they wanted.
Instead, it became the bait in a trap I was too naive to see coming.
The morning of the wedding, I woke up bald.
Chapter 2: The Sound of Scissors in the Dark
I must have been drugged. That’s the only explanation for why I slept through someone shaving my head with what felt like garden clippers. My silver hair—the one vanity I’d maintained through decades of stress—lay in scattered clumps around my pillow like the remnants of a massacre.
The note taunted me from the nightstand: “Congratulations—you finally have a ‘hairstyle’ that suits your age. Enjoy my wedding day! —Sabrina”
My hands shook as I called my hairstylist, Lucia, who’d been with me for twenty years. She arrived in thirty minutes with a selection of wigs and the kind of professional discretion that doesn’t ask questions.
