She had not merely wanted my money.

She had wanted the particular power that money would buy her inside that house, the power to never again be questioned, to have her word be law, to make everyone under that roof answerable to her and no one able to check her.

The theft of the estate was the means.

The real appetite was for dominion, for a household in which she could do as she pleased to whomever she pleased and no one, not the staff, not me, not anyone, could say a word.

Teresa had stood in the way of that vision simply by being someone whose loyalty pointed elsewhere.