I did not come to gloat.

I want to be clear about that, because it would have been easy, and I had earned it, and I chose something colder and better.

I came to end it, cleanly, in daylight, in front of witnesses, with every document certified and every step lawful, so that no version of the story could ever be told in which I was anything but exactly right.

Chapter 14 — My Real Family

I heard Alejandro before I saw him.

I heard him the moment I came through the revolving doors into the marble lobby, his voice booming off the stone, because he had brought Claudia, and the baby, and his parents into the lobby of his office to show them off.