Poppy turned and wrapped both arms around my waist.
“Then you’re the bravest person in the whole world, Mommy.”
And I, who had not cried on that marble floor, or in the ballroom, or once in six long years of swallowing everything — I finally let the tears come.
I didn’t cry for Declan, or the house, or the six years I’d handed away.
I cried for the quiet woman I used to be, and for every single time she had mistaken her own silence for love.
Chapter 18 — A Home Where No One Feels Small
Three months later the divorce was final.
Declan lost the company; what could be recovered went first to the back wages and the looted pensions of the people he’d stolen from.
He lost custody, and he faced the charges he’d earned.
Roxana was sentenced for the fraud, the forgery, and the assault, and the glittering network of fictional friends she’d invented evaporated the moment there was nothing left to gain from her.