I looked out at the quiet street and watched the sunset paint the sky in deep shades of rose and gold and violet, and I let the peace of it settle all the way into me, the way I had once been unable to let any peace settle, back when some part of me was always braced for the next small cruelty.

For years, Roman and his mother had worked, patiently and deliberately, to make me feel small.

They had told me I was useless, that I was helpless, that I would be nothing without the family name they had condescended to lend me.

They had genuinely believed that by controlling the money and threatening my future, they could keep me submissive, a quiet frightened woman who would never dare to leave and could not survive if she did.

And they had made exactly one mistake, the same mistake their whole kind always makes, the mistake that undoes them every time.