I had, at last, become a woman that cold paper could not lie to.

And whatever the paper inside that envelope remembers — whatever my father did, whatever Alistair promised, whatever debt or truth or gift I was brought into that family to carry — I will read it clear-eyed, and I will honor what deserves honoring, and I will refuse what deserves refusing, and I will let no one, living or dead, write the rest of my story for me.

The envelope is the beginning of something.

But it will be my beginning now, on my terms, in my own hand.

The family constructed their version of me for eight years.

I am done being their construction.

From here, I follow the money, and then I follow myself.