She smiled. “Yes.
I’d like that.”
Her life wasn’t magically perfect afterward, but it was peaceful. And for the first time, she was building a future separate from the people who tried to break her. Still, she sometimes remembered that phone call—her mother begging, terrified, desperate.
And the calm words she spoke in return:
“I’m not associated with that property anymore.”
What she really meant was something far deeper—
She wasn’t associated with them anymore.
