Tessa received five, along with a court-ordered restitution mandate that forced the total liquidation of the family mansion, the private art collection, and their personal assets, to repay the millions they had stolen from a charity meant for children.

I did not attend the sentencing.

People expected me to; there is an assumption that a wronged person wants, above all, to be present for the fall, to watch it happen, to feel the satisfaction of seeing the powerful brought low.

But I found, when the day came, that I had no desire to be there at all.

I had already seen everything I needed to see, in that ballroom, in the moment Julian understood that the quiet woman he had used and framed and mocked had held his ruin in her hands the entire time.

That was the moment that mattered, and I had been there for it, and it was enough.