Then I looked up into my father’s streaming face, and I felt no grief and no regret at all.

“You said you would never hold my baby,” I told him, my voice clear. “I’m only making sure you keep your word. Get out.”

Reginald let out a broken sound and dropped his head. The guards walked my parents out and down the corridor, and the noise of them — Barbara’s shrieking, Reginald’s sobbing — grew fainter and fainter toward the elevator, until it was gone, and with it their money, their standing, and their daughter.

When the room was quiet, my phone buzzed against the table.

I picked it up. A news alert filled the screen:

CEO of Pembroke Development Arrested by FBI in Multimillion-Dollar Fraud.