It started when my five-year-old daughter, Josie, woke me in the middle of the night, saying she heard scratching beneath her floor.

I thought it was just a bad dream until I heard it too: soft thuds and scrapes right below her room.

Grabbing a flashlight and my husband’s old bat, I went to the basement’s outside entrance.

The padlock was gone. Then, out of the shadows stepped my husband’s ex-wife, Elena.

Calmly, she claimed she was retrieving something that was hers.

Then she dropped the shocker: she and my husband used to rob houses, and he had hidden her share of the loot downstairs.

When my husband returned from a business trip, I confronted him. He laughed at first,

until I insisted we go into the basement. Though everything looked normal,

fresh footprints in the dust said otherwise. I knocked on a wall and heard it echo hollow.

His face changed. He admitted it he and Elena used to steal, “only from rich people,”

he said, “just a game.” I was stunned. This man I loved and trusted was a stranger.

That night, while he slept, I packed our bags and left with Josie. I didn’t call the police I just wanted to keep her safe.

A week later, I filed for divorce. I told Josie her dad was sick and needed help before she could see him again.

We rented a small apartment, and I started over. Then, months later,

a news alert popped up: James and Elena had been caught breaking into a mansion,

linked to over a dozen robberies. Their mugshots were everywhere. Maybe Elena came to warn me.

Maybe it was revenge. Either way, I was free and so was my daughter.

Today, we live in a quiet apartment. No sounds beneath the floor.

No locked secrets in the basement. Just Josie, me, and peace.

She sleeps through the night again, and so do I. Sometimes,

I think about that hidden wall, but then I see my daughter playing safely in her room and know the truth: peace is everything.