Eighteen months after the divorce was finalized, the tall windows of my firm looked out over the Philadelphia skyline, and the afternoon light came in gold across a small glass plaque on my desk that read Ellsworth Forensic Audit & Financial Protection.

An email from Nadia sat unread on my screen: the court receiver had verified the final restitution wire, the last twenty-four thousand dollars recovered from Rowan’s liquidations deposited back into my account, the audit of the marital estate formally closed.

I did not care about the money — my firm had already grossed more in its first year than Rowan earned in his entire career — but the last transfer was worth something anyway, as a period at the end of a long sentence.

Every dollar that had ever been taken from me under the cover of love, returned, on the record, by order of a court.