“I know exactly what they’ll say,” I replied gently.

“He owns everything,” she sobbed, looking down at her lap. “He controls the money, the house, the cars. I have nothing.”

“That,” I said, leaning forward, “is precisely the illusion he desperately wants you to believe.”

She slowly raised her head, her tear-filled eyes tracing the visible scars creeping up my neck.

“How did you do it? How did you possibly beat someone who had all the power?”

I smiled—a genuine, warm smile—and slid the heavy blue folder across the polished mahogany desk toward her trembling hands.

“I simply stopped begging cruel, empty people to love me,” I told her, my voice steady and certain.