And a mother operating out of vengeance makes mistakes, because vengeance is hot and impatient and careless, because it cares more about the enemy’s ruin than the child’s protection, and will sometimes sacrifice the second to achieve the first.

I could not afford to make mistakes.

Chloe could not afford for me to make mistakes.

So I set revenge aside, deliberately, and held onto the one motive that was clean, and cold, and utterly reliable: I was a mother, and my child had been endangered, and my single job now was to make her permanently safe.

That was all.

Not to hurt George, but to protect Chloe.