For Nine Years He Mistook My Silence for Surrender; What He Never Understood Was That Every Dinner I Didn’t Fight About Was a Day I Stayed Close Enough to Gather What I Needed to End Him

The dark circles under his eyes argued otherwise.

Beside him Sabrina sat holding her tablet against her chest like a shield.

And along both sides of the table sat our minority investors — the people who had put their own money into Halstead House at the very beginning, on faith — looking between Roman and me with growing unease, because they had been summoned here on a few hours’ notice and no one had told them why.

Roman cleared his throat and leaned into the room with all the warmth he could still manufacture.