I felt something almost like pity for Lavinia in that moment, though not enough to soften what was coming for her.

Because she had been used, too, in her way — Lucan had lied to her as fluently as he’d lied to me, had told her I was nobody, had let her believe she was trading up when she was really just the next person he would eventually discard.

But I could not extend her too much sympathy, because she had made her own choices with her eyes open.

She had chosen to wear my earrings.

She had chosen to route corporate fraud through her own brother’s shell company.

She had chosen to believe a married man’s account of his wife because that account gave her permission to take what she wanted. He told me you were nobody was not really an apology or even an explanation.