Part 1: Opening

My husband pushed me down the stairs.

And while I lay at the bottom, unable to breathe without pain, my mother-in-law called my father and told him to come collect his “worthless daughter.”

Dad gave her one warning.

“If she has so much as a scratch, your family will answer for it.”

They laughed at him.

They had absolutely no idea who my father was.

Two hours later, I was lying in a hospital triage bay with cracked ribs, bruises spreading across my arms and back, and one thought repeating in my mind.

My daughter.

Lily was four years old. She was somewhere in the house with my husband, Nathan Callahan, and his parents. I had no idea what they had told her, whether she had witnessed the fall, or whether they were already teaching her to be afraid of me.

I tried to sit up.

Pain shot through my chest.

“Please,” I whispered to the nurse. “I need to know where my daughter is.”

The nurse gently pressed me back against the pillow.

“We’re going to make sure you’re medically stable first. The police are here, and we’re working on contacting someone you trust.”

The police.

That word should have comforted me.

Instead, it made my stomach tighten.

Nathan’s family had money, political connections, and a reputation for getting exactly what they wanted. His father, Richard, owned a construction and property development company. His mother, Patricia, chaired two local charity boards and knew judges, council members, and business leaders by their first names.

They were accustomed to controlling the story before anyone else could tell it.

According to Patricia, I had simply lost my balance.

She had apparently cried while giving her statement to the officers, describing me as an exhausted young mother who had become emotionally unstable during an argument.

Nathan’s version was similar.

He claimed I had rushed past him on the staircase, tripped, and fallen.

Neither mentioned the argument that had started in the upstairs hallway.

It had begun when I discovered an email on Nathan’s laptop.

He had been moving money from our joint savings account into a business account controlled by his father. When I asked him about it, he told me I had misunderstood the transactions.

I asked for the bank statements.

He told me to stop questioning him.

I said I wouldn’t sign anything until an independent accountant reviewed the records.

That was when he grabbed my arm.

I tried to pull away.

He shoved me.

I remembered the railing striking my shoulder. I remembered the terrible sensation of missing a step, then another. I remembered the floor rushing toward me.

And I remembered Nathan standing above me afterward.

For a few seconds, he didn’t move.

Then Patricia appeared behind him.

“Oh, Nathan,” she said. “What have you done?”

It sounded like concern.

But she wasn’t looking at me.

She was looking at the staircase.

Then she looked at her son.

“Go upstairs,” she ordered quietly. “Let me handle this.”

I had been too injured to understand what she meant.

Now, in the hospital, I was beginning to understand.

They weren’t just trying to explain away the fall.

They were trying to make me the problem.

A uniformed officer came to my bedside and introduced himself as Detective Harris. He asked whether I felt safe returning home.

“No,” I answered.

The word came out before I could soften it.

He nodded and asked whether I wanted him to document that statement.

“Yes.”

He wrote it down.

Then he asked whether Nathan had ever threatened or physically hurt me before.

I told him about the times Nathan had grabbed my wrists during arguments, blocked doorways when I tried to leave, and punched a hole in the pantry door beside my head. I had never reported those incidents. I had convinced myself they were isolated moments of anger that would never happen again.

Detective Harris listened without interrupting.

He explained that the department would preserve my statement, seek any available evidence, and continue investigating. He made no promises about what would happen next.

I was grateful for that honesty.

Then my phone buzzed.

It was a message from Patricia.

Your daughter is safe with us. Don’t make this situation uglier than it needs to be.

A second message arrived moments later.

Nathan is a good father. If you cooperate, we can keep this private.

I stared at the screen.

My ribs hurt.

My head throbbed.

But suddenly, I was more frightened than I had been at the bottom of the stairs.

They were already using Lily as leverage.

I called my father.

Dad lived in a modest house on a quiet street. He drove an old sedan, wore the same three winter coats year after year, and spent most afternoons tending tomatoes in his backyard.

After my mother died, he had become even quieter.

As far as I knew, he had spent his career doing administrative work for the Department of Justice. He had never discussed his job in detail, and I had never pushed him.

When he answered, I tried to sound calm.

“Dad?”

“Rachel? What’s wrong?”

I broke down.

I told him about the stairs, the hospital, Nathan’s story, and Patricia’s messages.

He didn’t interrupt once.

When I finished, there was a long silence.

Then he asked, “Are you receiving medical care?”

“Yes.”

“Have you spoken to the police?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Don’t delete any messages. Don’t respond to Nathan or his mother about the incident. Save everything, and let the detective know if they contact you again.”

“Dad, I’m scared they’re going to take Lily.”

His voice changed.

Not louder.

Not angrier.

Just colder.

“I’m going to make some calls.”

“Dad, please don’t do anything reckless.”

“Rachel, listen to me. You concentrate on getting well. I’ll handle what I can handle.”

A few minutes later, my phone rang again.

It was Patricia.

I answered because I wanted to know what she was planning.

She didn’t ask about my injuries.

She didn’t ask whether I was in pain.

Instead, she said, “Your father called me.”

I closed my eyes.

“What did he say?”

“He threatened us.”

“He told you to leave me alone.”

Patricia gave a short, contemptuous laugh.

“Your father should understand his place. He spent his life pushing papers around a government office. He cannot frighten people like us.”

Then she said the words I would never forget.

“Come get your worthless daughter and take her back.”

I heard Dad’s voice in the background. He had apparently called her from his own phone.

“If she has so much as a scratch, your family will answer for it.”

Patricia laughed again.

“Is that supposed to scare me?”

“No,” Dad replied. “It’s supposed to warn you.”

She hung up.

I lay there, staring at the ceiling.

For the first time in my life, I wondered whether there was something about my father I had never known.

Then the curtain around my hospital bed opened.

I expected a doctor.

Instead, a silver-haired man wearing a charcoal three-piece suit stepped inside, carrying an old leather briefcase.

“Mrs. Callahan?”

“Yes?”

“My name is Gabriel Fletcher. Your father retained me forty-five minutes ago.”

I stared at him.

“My father?”

Gabriel pulled a chair beside the bed.

“Before we discuss your husband’s family, I need to ask you something. What exactly did your father tell you he did before he retired?”

“Compliance reports. Administrative work. Things like that.”

For the first time, Gabriel gave what was almost a smile.

“Rachel, your father was Chief of the Special Prosecutions and Organized Financial Crimes Division.”

I forgot about my ribs for a moment.

“What?”

“He led complex prosecutions involving public corruption, financial fraud, and organized racketeering. He worked with federal investigators and prosecutors on cases involving people who believed their money and influence made them untouchable.”

I could only stare at him.

“My father?”

“Your father,” Gabriel confirmed. “He was respected because he followed evidence, not because he made threats. He prosecuted powerful people, but he also understood that a case has to be built properly.”

Gabriel opened his briefcase and removed a folder.

“Your husband’s family filed an emergency custody motion twelve minutes ago.”

My blood turned cold.

“They’re trying to take Lily?”

“They’re asking the court to grant them temporary control over her care while claiming you’re unable to provide a safe environment. The court has not ruled on that request.”

I struggled to breathe through the pain.

“They’re lying.”

“Then we will respond with evidence.”

He leaned forward.

“Your father has asked me to protect your legal interests. He has also asked that nobody pressure you into signing anything while you’re receiving medical care.”

I looked at the folder.

“They think I’m alone.”

Gabriel’s expression hardened.

“They may think that. But they have made a serious mistake by assuming your injuries will prevent you from protecting yourself and your daughter.”

For the first time since I had crashed down those stairs, I felt something other than fear.

Not revenge.

Not triumph.

A small, steady sense that I might survive this.

Because Nathan’s family had spent years believing that money could control the truth.

They were about to discover that the truth did not belong to them.

Part 2: Body

Gabriel did not promise that my father’s reputation would make everything easy.

In fact, he warned me that it might make the situation more complicated.

“Your father cannot order a judge to rule in your favor,” he explained. “He cannot tell the police what conclusion to reach. And his former position doesn’t make your husband’s family guilty of anything. What we can do is make sure the evidence is preserved, your rights are protected, and the court receives an accurate picture of what happened.”

I appreciated that he said it plainly.

For the next several hours, he worked quietly beside my hospital bed.

He arranged for another attorney to review the custody filing, requested copies of the documents submitted by Nathan’s family, and coordinated with Detective Harris about preserving relevant messages and financial records.

He also asked me not to speculate about what had happened to Lily or make accusations I couldn’t support.

“We need facts,” he said. “The more carefully we handle this, the harder it will be for anyone to distort your words.”

At first, I thought he was being overly cautious.

Then I read the custody motion.

Nathan’s family had described me as emotionally unstable, financially irresponsible, and prone to sudden outbursts. The filing suggested that my injuries were consistent with an accidental fall during a heated argument.

It also claimed that Nathan had been the parent primarily responsible for Lily’s daily routine.

That last statement was almost unbelievable.

I was the one who woke Lily for preschool, packed her lunches, attended her pediatric appointments, and read to her every night. Nathan loved his daughter, but his work frequently kept him away until after bedtime.

His parents knew that.

They had watched me raise her.

Now they were presenting a different version of my life to a court.

“Can they really do this?” I asked.

“They can file a motion,” Gabriel replied. “That doesn’t mean the court will accept their claims. We’ll respond through the proper process.”

He arranged for my attorney to request a prompt hearing and submit evidence relevant to Lily’s welfare. We included my hospital records, the messages Patricia had sent, and a written account of my daily caregiving responsibilities.

Nothing was exaggerated.

Nothing was invented.

I told the truth.

Meanwhile, Detective Harris returned with another officer.

They asked my permission to photograph my injuries and record a more detailed statement. I agreed. They explained that my medical treatment came first and that I could ask for a break whenever I needed one.

When I described Nathan grabbing my arm and pushing me, Detective Harris asked me to repeat the sequence slowly.

I did.

He didn’t tell me what he believed. He simply documented my account and explained that investigators would look for corroborating evidence.

Later that evening, the hospital social worker helped me contact a domestic violence support service. They discussed a safe discharge plan, temporary accommodation, and ways to keep my location private if necessary.

For the first time, I began to understand that protecting myself was not the same thing as fighting Nathan.

It meant making sure he could not reach me whenever he wanted.

It meant not returning to a home where I was afraid.

And it meant allowing other people to help.

Then Gabriel received a call.

He listened for nearly a minute before saying, “Please send that through the appropriate channel. We won’t rely on an informal account.”

When he hung up, I asked what had happened.

“Your father has spoken with a former colleague who now works in a public integrity office,” he said. “That colleague recognized the name of your father-in-law’s company from a separate matter involving disputed invoices on a public contract.”

My heart began pounding.

“Does that mean Richard did something illegal?”

“No,” Gabriel said immediately. “It means there may be records worth reviewing. A disputed invoice is not proof of fraud, and this is a separate matter. Your father’s former colleagues will handle it independently if there’s a proper basis to do so.”

I nodded, embarrassed by how quickly I had wanted an answer.

Gabriel continued.

“Your father has specifically asked everyone involved to avoid any appearance of using his former position to influence the investigation into your husband. He wants the evidence handled by people who are independent of him.”

That surprised me.

I had imagined Dad making calls and unleashing some invisible force that would sweep Nathan’s family out of my life.

Instead, he was insisting on procedure.

That was when I began to understand what his career had actually taught him.

Power wasn’t the ability to make people obey.

It was the discipline to let the evidence speak, even when you had every reason to want a particular outcome.

The next morning, Dad arrived at the hospital.

He wore his old brown jacket and carried a paper bag containing my favorite ginger biscuits, even though the nurse had told him I could only have what my medical team approved.

He stood at the foot of the bed and looked at me.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then he came over and gently took my hand.

“Oh, Rachel.”

His voice broke.

That was the moment I started crying again.

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

He frowned.

“For what?”

“For not telling you how bad things had become.”

He pulled a chair close to me.

“You don’t apologize for someone hurting you.”

I looked down.

“I thought I could fix it.”

“I know.”

“I kept thinking Nathan would change.”

Dad rubbed his thumb across the back of my hand.

“People can change, sweetheart. But you cannot make yourself responsible for changing someone who keeps choosing to hurt you.”

I cried until my ribs made me stop.

Dad waited.

When I finally calmed down, I asked the question that had been bothering me since Gabriel’s visit.

“Why didn’t you tell me what you did?”

He looked toward the window.

“Because it wasn’t who I wanted to be at home.”

“What do you mean?”

“My work was full of people who thought their titles made them important. I didn’t want you to grow up thinking your father was someone special because of his job.”

“You prosecuted people who hurt others.”

“I helped enforce the law. Other people investigated. Other people presented evidence. Judges and juries made decisions. I was one part of a much larger system.”

He looked back at me.

“When I came home, I wanted to be your father. Not a prosecutor. Not a title. Just Dad.”

I squeezed his hand.

“Patricia laughed at you.”

“I heard.”

“Doesn’t that make you angry?”

“Of course it does.”

He didn’t pretend otherwise.

“But anger isn’t a plan.”

He leaned closer.

“Your job right now is to recover. Our job is to protect you and Lily through the law.”

For the first time, I felt safe enough to sleep.

Three days later, the custody hearing took place.

My doctors had cleared me to attend remotely, so I appeared by video from a private room at the hospital. Gabriel and my family-law attorney sat beside me.

Nathan appeared in a dark suit.

Patricia sat behind him, dressed as if she were attending a charity luncheon.

Richard was there too.

They looked composed.

Confident.

Almost bored.

Their attorney described Nathan as a devoted father and suggested that I was too injured and emotionally distressed to care for Lily.

My attorney responded with the hospital records, my documented history of caregiving, and Patricia’s messages.

The judge listened carefully.

Then she asked Nathan a direct question.

“Mr. Callahan, do you deny pushing your wife during the argument?”

Nathan hesitated.

“I was trying to stop her from leaving the conversation. She slipped.”

The judge looked at the documents.

“Your wife’s statement is that you grabbed her arm and pushed her. The medical records establish significant injuries, though they do not independently establish how those injuries occurred. The police investigation is ongoing. I am not going to determine the underlying incident today.”

She paused.

“But I am concerned about the messages sent to the injured party and the attempt to frame this matter as a custody emergency without a clear assessment of the child’s immediate circumstances.”

Patricia’s expression changed.

The judge ordered a neutral assessment of Lily’s current living arrangements and directed that neither parent discuss the allegations with Lily or coach her about what to say. She also ordered that all parties preserve relevant communications and financial records.

For the time being, Lily would remain in a safe, supervised arrangement with a neutral relative approved through the court’s process, with contact determined according to the child’s welfare and the recommendations of the professionals involved.

Nathan’s request for sole temporary custody was not granted.

It was not a final decision.

But it was enough to stop his family from using an emergency filing to shut me out of my daughter’s life.

When the hearing ended, Patricia leaned toward Nathan and whispered something.

He looked furious.

For the first time, I saw uncertainty on his face.

Not because my father had threatened him.

Because the court had asked questions he couldn’t answer with money or charm.

That afternoon, Gabriel received a call from Detective Harris.

The investigators had obtained footage from a security camera in the hallway outside the staircase. It did not show the fall itself, but it captured Nathan entering the hallway moments before I fell and Patricia arriving shortly afterward.

They had also located a smart speaker in the adjacent room that had recorded a brief portion of the argument. The recording was not conclusive on its own, but it included Nathan shouting, “You are not walking away from me,” followed by a loud impact and Patricia saying, “Nobody needs to know what happened.”

The recording was being authenticated and reviewed.

I listened to the excerpt once.

Then I asked them to stop it.

I couldn’t bear to hear the sound again.

The evidence didn’t settle every question, but it gave investigators a reason to pursue the case further.

A week later, Detective Harris told me that Nathan had been interviewed again. He had changed part of his account, acknowledging that he had grabbed my arm but continuing to deny intentionally pushing me down the stairs.

The police submitted the evidence for review by prosecutors.

No one promised me an immediate arrest or conviction.

The process would take time.

But for the first time, Nathan could no longer rely on the assumption that his version of events would be accepted without scrutiny.

Then the financial records began to matter.

My attorney had requested a review of the transactions I had discovered on Nathan’s laptop. An independent accountant found that money from our joint savings had been transferred to a company account connected to Richard’s business.

Some transfers had been described as loans.

Others were recorded as consulting payments.

The documentation was incomplete, and I had not authorized several of the transactions.

That did not automatically prove fraud. But it raised serious questions about where the money had gone and who had approved the transfers.

The accountant prepared a report for my attorney.

My attorney submitted the relevant material through the proper channels and requested that the court prevent the disputed funds from being moved while the financial issues were reviewed.

The judge granted a limited preservation order covering the disputed assets.

Richard’s attorney objected.

He argued that the company had legitimate business expenses and that the transactions were being misunderstood.

The court did not decide the merits of those claims at that hearing. It simply required the parties to preserve the records and provide additional financial disclosures.

For Richard, that was an unfamiliar experience.

He had spent years making decisions in rooms where people accepted his explanations because challenging him was inconvenient.

Now he had to produce documents.

And documents, unlike reputations, could be checked.

Part 3: Conclusion

The next several weeks were the hardest of my life.

My ribs healed slowly.

I couldn’t lift Lily when I first saw her again, and that hurt almost as much as the injuries. During our initial supervised visit, she climbed onto the chair beside me and placed her small hand over mine.

“Mommy, why are you hurt?”

I swallowed.

“I had an accident during a grown-up argument, sweetheart. The doctors are helping me get better.”

She looked at me with wide eyes.

“Are you coming home?”

I brushed a strand of hair away from her face.

“Not to the old house, baby. But I’m working on a safe place for us.”

She considered that.

“Can I still have bedtime stories?”

I smiled through my tears.

“Every night I can.”

We read the same book three times that afternoon.

I didn’t ask her what Nathan had told her. I didn’t ask her to choose sides. The child specialist had explained that Lily needed permission to love both parents without feeling responsible for the conflict between them.

I followed that advice.

Whatever happened between Nathan and me, Lily deserved a childhood that wasn’t turned into evidence.

Dad visited whenever he could.

He never told me that everything would be fine.

Instead, he brought groceries, helped me organize the paperwork, and sat beside me when the nights became difficult.

One evening, I asked him whether he had heard anything about Richard’s company.

“Some records are being reviewed,” he said. “That’s all I can responsibly tell you.”

“Do you think they’ll find something?”

“I think people should be allowed to examine the evidence and reach their own conclusions.”

I laughed weakly.

“You sound like Gabriel.”

“Gabriel has been a good lawyer for a long time.”

Then Dad looked at me.

“And Rachel, even if they find nothing unlawful in those business transactions, that doesn’t erase what happened to you. Your safety doesn’t depend on proving every suspicion you have about Nathan’s family.”

I thought about that for a long time.

I had become so focused on exposing the people who had hurt me that I had nearly forgotten the most important thing.

I didn’t need Richard to be guilty of financial misconduct to leave an abusive marriage.

I didn’t need Patricia to admit she had lied before I could protect Lily.

And I didn’t need Nathan to be convicted before I could decide that I would never live with him again.

My decision wasn’t a punishment.

It was a boundary.

Two months after the fall, the prosecutor’s office informed Detective Harris that it would proceed with charges against Nathan based on the available evidence. The specific charges and next steps were explained to me by the victim liaison assigned to the case.

Nathan entered a plea of not guilty.

His attorney challenged the interpretation of the recording and questioned whether the evidence proved an intentional push. The court scheduled further proceedings.

There would be no instant verdict.

No dramatic confession.

No courtroom moment in which every person who had ever dismissed me suddenly understood everything.

There would be hearings, evidence, legal arguments, and time.

But I was no longer facing those things alone.

The financial investigation continued separately. Richard’s company was required to produce records concerning the disputed transfers. Investigators identified discrepancies in several invoices, but whether those discrepancies amounted to wrongdoing remained under review.

Dad did not intervene.

He did not contact the judge.

He did not tell investigators what conclusion to reach.

When a former colleague asked whether he could provide background on Richard’s business, Dad disclosed his connection to me and declined to participate in any decision-making. He directed the colleague to the publicly available records and the appropriate independent investigators.

That, I realized, was the difference between the man Patricia had imagined and the man my father actually was.

He didn’t need to prove he was powerful.

He knew the limits of his power.

And he respected them.

As for Nathan, the family-law proceedings continued alongside the criminal case. The court considered the evidence, the recommendations of the child specialist, and Lily’s need for stability.

I was eventually allowed to establish a separate home with Lily, with parenting arrangements set by the court and subject to review as the cases progressed. Nathan’s contact was structured around safety recommendations and the court’s orders.

I did not celebrate the restrictions.

I wished Lily could have a father who never frightened her mother.

But I could not manufacture that person for her.

I could only provide a safe home, tell her the truth in age-appropriate ways, and let qualified professionals guide the rest.

Patricia sent me a letter several months later.

She wrote that she had been frightened by the possibility of losing control of the family situation. She said she had believed protecting Nathan meant protecting everyone.

She did not clearly acknowledge every lie she had told.

At the end, however, she wrote:

I should never have called you worthless. I should have asked whether you were alive.

I read that sentence twice.

Then I put the letter in a drawer.

I wasn’t ready to forgive her.

Perhaps I never would be.

But I no longer needed her apology to understand my own worth.

The criminal case took many more months. The evidence was examined in court, and Nathan’s defense was allowed to challenge it. Ultimately, he accepted a plea agreement to a lesser assault charge after consulting with his attorney. The court imposed a sentence that included a period of probation, mandatory intervention programming, and strict no-contact conditions except through approved channels concerning Lily.

It wasn’t the ending I had imagined in the hospital.

It was a legal outcome, not a magical restoration of what had been taken from me.

I still had nightmares.

Certain staircases made my hands tremble.

For a while, I couldn’t hear a raised male voice without feeling my body tense.

Healing took longer than the bruises.

The financial dispute was also resolved through a separate process. Some of the transfers were supported by legitimate business records; others were not adequately documented. The parties reached a settlement concerning the disputed funds without any finding that every questioned transaction was criminal. Richard’s company also agreed to revise its internal accounting controls.

His reputation survived.

His company survived.

But he could no longer assume that every question would disappear because he disliked being asked.

I moved with Lily into a small, sunlit apartment near a park.

The first night there, she chose a yellow blanket and insisted that her stuffed rabbit sleep beside her pillow.

I sat on the floor until she fell asleep.

Then I went to the kitchen and called Dad.

“We’re home,” I told him.

He was quiet for a moment.

“Good.”

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“You came when I needed you.”

“That’s what fathers do.”

I leaned against the counter and cried.

Not because I was afraid this time.

Because I finally understood that my father’s greatest gift had never been his career, his reputation, or the cases he had helped prosecute.

It was the way he had taught me to stand up without becoming cruel.

He had not used his past to destroy Nathan’s family.

He had used his knowledge to help me find the right people, preserve the evidence, and protect my daughter through a process that would stand up to scrutiny.

Months later, I asked him why he had kept his career so quiet.

He smiled.

“Because the job ended when I came home.”

“And what did you do at home?”

He looked at me as if the answer were obvious.

“I raised my daughter.”

I thought about Nathan’s family laughing at him over the phone.

They had mistaken modesty for weakness.

They had mistaken silence for ignorance.

They had mistaken an old man in a worn jacket for someone who could be dismissed.

But Dad never needed them to know his history.

He needed me to know that I had choices.

I could seek help.

I could tell the truth.

I could protect my daughter.

And I could leave a marriage that had become dangerous without feeling that I had failed.

On Lily’s fifth birthday, Dad arrived with a small wooden dollhouse he had built himself. It wasn’t expensive or elaborate. The windows were a little crooked, and one door stuck unless you lifted it gently.

Lily loved it.

She spent the afternoon arranging tiny chairs and beds inside it.

“Grandpa,” she said, “this is Mommy’s room. This is my room. And this is your room.”

Dad laughed.

“Where will I sleep?”

She pointed to a tiny bed.

“Right there.”

He looked at me.

“Seems I’ve been given a room.”

I smiled.

“You’d better behave. She’s very strict.”

For the first time in months, the three of us laughed without fear.

I still don’t know everything my father did during his career.

I don’t need to.

I know what he did when I called him from a hospital bed.

He listened.

He believed that my safety mattered.

He found qualified help.

And he reminded me that the law was not a weapon for settling family scores. It was a process that could protect people when it was followed honestly.

Nathan’s family had thought I was alone because they had never bothered to understand me.

They had thought my father was powerless because he lived quietly.

And they had thought that an injured woman would be too frightened to fight for her child.

They were wrong about all three.

I didn’t win because my father had once prosecuted powerful people.

I began to recover because I stopped trying to survive in silence.

Because I told the truth.

Because I accepted help.

And because I finally understood something I wished I had learned before I reached the bottom of those stairs:

A person’s worth is not determined by the family that tries to erase her. And real power is not making people afraid of you. It is making sure they can no longer use their power to keep you afraid.