What she wanted was the opposite of revenge, which is not forgiveness but simply absence: to reach a state in which the Monteros occupied no space in her life at all, took up none of her thoughts, cost her nothing further.

So she did the unglamorous administrative work of erasure — the passwords, the authorizations, the legal barriers — the way you’d change the locks after losing a set of keys.

Not to punish the person who had them.

To make certain they could never let themselves back in.

Xiomara married months later in a small rented hall, no luxury hotel, no designer dresses, Leticia telling the guests all evening that they’d “always preferred something intimate.” Nobody believed her.

Ashvale Manor barely survived foreclosure, and only by selling off half its land.