“I’ll be back in forty minutes, maybe less,” Mom called out from the living room the next morning.

She shut the front door, and the sound of her SUV backing out of the driveway echoed through the quiet house.

The silence that settled in her wake was suffocating. I heard his footsteps crossing the kitchen floor—heavy and totally deliberate. I set down the glass I was washing, my heart instantly hammering against my ribs. But his large hand clamped securely around my wrists before I could even spin around. His fingers locked around them in a firm grip, and hauled me toward the hallway.

“Dad…”

“The master suite,” he commanded...