My mother-in-law poured something strange into my drink when she thought I wasn’t looking, I swapped glasses with her husband and then…

Maybe not. But she’ll believe the lab report, and the prescription records, and the neighbors you’ve alienated. Are you willing to bet your relationship with your daughter on that? I left without taking a single photo.

That night, Diane called Haley in tears, claiming I’d behaved inappropriately during our session. Said I’d been hostile and threatening. When Haley confronted me, I couldn’t hide the truth anymore.

I showed her everything, the lab report, the prescriptions, even text messages from her mother that had become increasingly hostile over the years. My mother wouldn’t do this, she kept saying, but her voice lacked conviction. The next day she confronted her parents.

I wasn’t there, but when she returned home, her eyes were red from crying. My father says it’s all a misunderstanding, she said quietly, that you’re trying to drive a wedge between us because you’re insecure about your career. I just nodded.

I’d expected this. What do you think? I asked. She didn’t answer, just crawled into bed and turned away from me.

I’d pushed back, but somehow I’d fallen deeper into their trap. Now I was the villain in their story, and they’d managed to plant doubt in the one person whose opinion mattered most to me. For two weeks, Haley barely spoke to me.

She went to her parents’ house alone, came back with red eyes and new doubts. I threw myself into work, spending long hours in my studio, waiting for the storm to pass. Then a package arrived for me.

No return address, just my name scrawled across the top in unfamiliar handwriting. Inside was a USB drive and a note. You should see this.

V double quote. Vanessa, Owen’s wife. The drive contained video files, home security footage from Gerald and Diane’s house.

The timestamps showed the night of the dinner. There was Diane in the kitchen, clearly adding something to a drink. There was me entering, taking the glasses.

There was Gerald drinking from the tampered glass. But there was more. Footage from after we’d left, Diane screaming at Gerald, blaming him for drinking from the wrong glass.

Gerald yelling back, this isn’t the first time you’ve done something like this. I watched the footage three times, trying to process what I was seeing, not just confirmation of Diane’s actions, but evidence of a pattern, evidence that Gerald knew. The next file was from two days after the dinner.

Diane and Gerald argued in their living room about me. He knows what you did, Gerald said. So what? Diane replied.

It’s his word against mine. Hayley will never choose him over family. And if she does? Then she’s not the daughter I raised, Diane said coldly.

Don’t worry. I’ve already started talking to her about their marriage problems, planting seeds. By the time I’m done, she’ll be filing for divorce and thinking it was her idea.

I shut my laptop, hands shaking. This wasn’t just about me. This was a systematic effort to control Hayley’s life, to isolate her from anyone who didn’t fit their vision.

And they’d been doing it for years. I called Vanessa immediately. Why did you send this to me? Because they did the same thing to me when I married Owen, she said quietly.

They tried to break us up for two years, said I wasn’t good enough. It almost worked. Why didn’t you tell us? Owen doesn’t know, she admitted.

He, he worships his father, believes everything he says. I’ve tried to tell him, but he thinks I’m paranoid. I just couldn’t watch them do it to someone else.

The next day, I received a text from Gerald. We should talk. Man to man, no wives…