Only the letters were.
Only the letters, and myself.
Chapter 16 — Three Attempts
The civil case over the house moved quickly, because I had preserved everything — every wire transfer, every bank confirmation, the notarized loan acknowledgement from five years earlier.
Faced with that unassailable paper trail, the civil court ruled entirely in my favor, awarding me a full financial judgment against Indigo and securing an immediate lien against the property they had called their legacy.
The house was, in every way that a court recognizes, more mine than theirs, and always had been.
During those months, Bruno tried to reach me three times.
The first was a text from a burner number: We can settle this like adults, Jade.
Please. I blocked it.
The second was his cousin, sent to tell me that Bruno was really the victim of his domineering parents.
I did not respond.
The third time was in person, at a pretrial hearing.
Bruno had been fired from his firm by then, his corporate standing destroyed, and he stood in the courthouse hallway looking thin and gray and disheveled.
“Jade, please,” he whispered as I passed.
“I never wanted them to hurt you like that.” I stopped.
I looked him directly in the eye.
“When your mother texted you that your father had beaten me,” I said, “you wrote back: maybe she’ll finally learn her place.” His face went completely white.
“I was angry,” he stammered.
“And I,” I said softly, “was bleeding on your floor.” He had no answer.
There was no answer.
And I walked past him and into the hearing, and I did not look back, because I had finally understood that a man’s remorse, arriving only after his crimes have cost him everything, is not remorse at all.
It is only grief for himself.
Chapter 17 — The Family Tears Itself Apart
When the defendants gave their formal statements, the family that had demanded a decade of absolute, unquestioning loyalty from me tore itself completely to pieces.
Bruno swore the entire vendor-kickback structure had been designed by his father.
Indigo swore under oath that it had all been Bruno’s idea, because Bruno was the one who understood corporate contracting.
Amber claimed, to anyone who would listen, that she was merely a dutiful housewife who had signed whatever her husband placed in front of her.
Three people who had stood shoulder to shoulder when the target was me now scrambled over one another in a frantic, undignified race to reach the prosecutors first and throw the other two under the wheels.
