The Happy Family (The Hunt family)

Chapter 1

ONE

SADIE

The room is spinning. I can hardly breathe. I’m trying my best not to faint.

But it’s not easy.

The past year has been the worst year of my life. A total nightmare. The kind of thing you never expect to happen to you.

Somebody took my husband and my kids.

Somebody took my family.

Family. It’s the thing that drives what many of us do in life.

The reason we get out of bed in the morning.

The reason we keep working hard to make money in soul-crushing jobs.

The reason we buy the bigger house, or the larger car, and the reason many of us count down to birthdays, or Christmas, or vacations with such excitement and anticipation.

Without family, our lives could feel very empty.

As empty as my life feels without mine.

Twelve long months of missing my two children.

Of being denied the opportunity to help get them dressed in the mornings, or cook meals for them, or drive them to school and hear about their day on the way back.

Twelve months since another woman took my place.

Raising my kids. Sleeping with my husband.

Living in the family home I worked so hard to create.

Her name is Luna.

She has everything I ever wanted.

She stole it from me.

People take things they shouldn’t all the time.

Children steal penny sweets. Eager relatives or friends take the last roast potato in the dish without asking.

Work colleagues might steal a co-worker’s sandwich from the staff room.

But all those things can be forgiven. What cannot be forgiven is when somebody takes something precious.

Like a family.

Luna has taken mine and I’ve just figured out how she did it.

She set fire to my parents’ home and framed another woman for it.

She broke into my home and defaced my favourite family photo.

She drove a wedge between me and my husband, and while our marriage was already on shaky ground, she sent seismic shockwaves through it to finish it off.

She drugged me and caused me to fail a breathalyser test, making me lose my driving licence and ruining any chance I had of gaining custody of my children.

Then she lured me to the woods, pretending to be my husband, to get me out there alone, where I fear she planned to kill me and bury my body.

Any one of those things happening in isolation would be terrifying and too much, but all of them together, one after the other, combined to create catastrophic consequences for me and my loved ones.

I’ve been left with nothing, forced to live with my parents for lack of money and a better option.

I’ve not been sleeping. I’ve barely been functioning.

All the while, she has been thriving.

I didn’t realise she was behind all of the strange and unexplained things that had happened to me.

I thought it had to be someone else. I even thought it was my husband at one point, convinced he had painstakingly plotted to get me out of his life so that he could keep our children for himself.

But now I’ve worked it all out, thanks to the tip-off from Gemma, my ex-husband’s mistress, who figured it out from where she languishes in prison for a crime she did not commit.

It’s not a second too soon. That’s because right now, at this very moment, Luna is living with Reid, Arthur and Ruby, my ex and our two darling children, and that means they are in danger by proximity to her.

I need to warn them. I need to get them away from Luna. I need to make sure she can’t hurt them like she hurt me.

I check the time. It’s almost midnight. Very late.

Most people are sleeping now. I know my parents are and I imagine Luna, Reid and the kids are too.

But there’s no way I can sleep. There’s no way I am waiting until the morning to expose Luna and the lengths she has gone to in her devastating plan to steal my family.

I have to do something now.

Tonight.

So I will.

I leave my bedroom, the cramped one I’ve been forced into as I rent this place with my parents while their house is rebuilt after the fire, and creep past the room where they sleep.

My mum and dad have been through a lot over this past year like I have, and I’m sure there is plenty to come after I expose Luna.

So I leave them to get their rest. I pass their bedroom and go downstairs as quietly as I can and then leave the house, allowing them to sleep and achieve what little peace they can before they wake up to the nightmare that I am currently engulfed in.

I put on my coat and shoes but there is one more thing I need before I leave.

I see my father’s car keys lying on the kitchen counter and scoop them up, feeling as if I’m touching some kind of forbidden fruit because I know I should not be in possession of car keys.

I am banned from driving. I would be breaking the law if I got behind the wheel of a car.

That’s why my father has been chauffeuring me around everywhere recently.

But not anymore. Tonight, I am driving and I’m doing so because I don’t want to waste a second in getting to my old house and getting Luna out of there as quickly as possible.

I step outside and feel a chill run down my spine. It could be the cold weather at this late hour of the day, or it could be the apprehension of what I am about to head towards.

A storm. A danger. A woman who has stopped at nothing to ruin my life.

But I’m about to meet that foe head-on.

I unlock my father’s car and get in behind the wheel, starting the engine and thinking about the last time I had the freedom of the road at my fingertips.

It was the morning over a year ago when I drove my children to school, the same morning a police car stopped me, and an officer breathalysed me.

I thought it was a joke, or just a random check, but it was neither.

It was a set-up.

I grit my teeth as I release the handbrake and ease my foot on the accelerator and, as I expected, I am more than a little rusty when it comes to operating a vehicle after such a long time.

The car judders and jolts and I almost stall it, but I eventually get the feel for it again and now I’m driving.

Which means I’m breaking the law. But it’s nothing in comparison to the crimes Luna has committed.

I’m on the way to my old house. The one I used to call home.

The one where I shared a bedroom with Reid, and where I used to tuck our two children into their beds each night.

The one where I made so many meals in the kitchen, watched so many kids’ movies in the lounge, and spent so many sunny afternoons in the garden with my little ones frolicking on the lawn.

I designed and decorated every room, I put up every photo, and I poured all of my love and attention into making it as warm a place to exist as any family could hope for.

I need to get there as quickly as possible and wake up my ex-husband.

Tell him that the woman he has allowed into his life is a liar.

Tell him to get the kids and get them out of the house until the police have arrested Luna and her true nature has been laid bare.

Only once my family members are safe can I rest, which is why I am pressing my foot down further and further on the accelerator pedal.

They are not currently safe.

As I speed through the silent streets, passing all these houses where families sleep and drama is lacking, I cannot believe that this is just the latest development in my own dramatic family history.

Depending on how things go when I get to my destination, all these people around here could be waking up to some very hair-raising headlines on the morning news.

If I have my way, the news will report on how Luna has been unmasked as a dangerous and deluded villain and I am the hero of the story, who has suffered so much before finally getting my redemption.

But if things go wrong, it’ll be my obituary they are reading.

I could call the police. Have them meet me there.

But that risks a couple of things. One, they might not believe my accusations and two, if they don’t, Reid won’t, and then I may have missed my chance.

I need to catch Luna off guard. I need to make Reid believe me and I know I can because we were so close once.

We were married. We were soulmates. I hope he’ll hear the truth in my words.

All I need to do is voice them to him and it’s best to do that without any other influences.

So no police. Not yet, anyway. The time for them will come. But for now, it’s my time.

This is my family.

So only I can do this.

I’m not far away now. Only a few minutes at most. The closer I get, the more I see my enemy’s face in my mind’s eye.

Luna took my family from me, so it’s time I start taking too.

I’m going to take my family back.

I’m going to take my revenge.