The house. The luxury cars in the drive. The bank accounts she was trying so hard to empty.

None of it belonged to Levi. All of it belonged to the parent holding company of Heartland Freight Systems — of which I was, and had always been, the sole shareholder.

My son was a director of a subsidiary. He lived in that house under a standard corporate lease.

Delia had spent years signing nothing and reading nothing, assuming the wealth was her husband’s to be tortured out of him.

She had built her whole cruel plan on a foundation that did not exist.

I photographed what I needed to — the chain, his injuries, enough to establish what had been done — and I bagged a piece of physical evidence and put it in my coat.