Once we approve Luca’s bridge loan and the new voting structure, everything settles.”

“It’s about protecting the family legacy,” Luca added smoothly, adjusting his silk tie, a man rehearsing his role as the reasonable rescuer.

I stood in that hallway and listened to my stepmother narrate my madness to a room full of people, and I felt none of the shame she had counted on me feeling.

I felt, instead, a great and settled calm, the calm of a person who knows the exact contents of the folder about to be opened.

I let her finish.