“The board approved the new internal auditing framework this morning,” he said, with a faint smile.

“Good,” I said, taking the coffee.

“No one gets away with missing numbers on my watch.

Not ever again.”

He looked at me with something like quiet respect.

“Six months ago,” he said, “your stepmother thought she was backing a helpless girl into a corner.”

I looked out at the city skyline below, at the ordinary morning light on the glass towers, and I felt the warmth of it on my face.

The cuts on my hand had healed into faint pale lines, barely visible now — the only physical trace left of the night I broke through a window and took my own life back into my own two hands.