Sorry that happened to you and your cat, and glad you got it back. I’ll assure you I’d never take in a cat without being sure there’s mistreatment involved (and that’d involve a visit to a vet to verify - it’s hard to tell just from sight; so far thankfully all the cats around here have seemed healthy), and I’m extremely careful about not letting any cats that come to visit get used to seeing my place as home, because I’d have been equally distraught if it happened to any of the cats we had when I was younger.