Chapter 7
A month later, the trial started.
It was quick.
The evidence was overwhelming.
The forged documents.
The bank records.
The gas can with Beatrice’s prints.
Chloe’s recorded confession from the wedding.
Beatrice didn’t even try to defend herself.
She sat there the whole time, staring at the wall, dead-eyed.
The jury deliberated for three hours.
Guilty on all counts.
The judge sentenced her to twelve years in state prison.
No parole.
Chloe, who’d testified against her mom in exchange for a lighter deal, got three years in a minimum-security facility, followed by five years’ probation and 2,000 hours of community service with burn survivors.
I was in the courtroom when the sentence was read.
I didn’t feel happy.
I didn’t feel triumphant.
I just felt… empty.
Like a weight I’d carried for so long I’d forgotten it was there had finally been lifted.
Leaving me light.
Raw.
Unsure what to do with myself now that the fight was over.
Liam held my hand as we walked out of the courthouse.
Reporters swarmed us, yelling questions.
We didn’t answer any of them.
We just got in the car and drove away.
We drove to the old neighborhood.
To the lot where my house had been.
It was being demolished now.
Nothing left but a pile of charred wood and broken bricks.
A chain-link fence around the whole thing.
I got out of the car.
Walked up to the fence.
Stared at the ruins.
This was where I’d grown up.
Where my mom had held me when I was sad.
Where I’d learned to ride a bike on the sidewalk.
Where Beatrice had tried to burn me alive.
I didn’t know how long I stood there.
Liam didn’t rush me.
He just stood behind me, hand on my shoulder, quiet.
Then I saw it.
Half-buried in a pile of ash and broken concrete.
A small, dented, heart-shaped locket.
My mom’s.
She’d worn it every single day.
Had my baby picture inside.
I’d thought it was lost forever in the fire.
I climbed over the fence.
Kneeled down in the dirt.
Pulled it out.
Brushed the ash off it.
It was blackened. Scratched.
But the clasp still worked.
I opened it.
My baby picture was a little singed around the edges.
But it was still there.
I started crying.
Hard, heaving sobs.
All the grief I’d been holding in for three years came pouring out.
Grief for my mom.
Grief for the girl I’d been before the fire.
Grief for the family I’d never had.
Liam climbed over the fence.
Sat down in the dirt beside me.
Pulled me into his lap.
Held me while I cried.
Didn’t say a word.
Just held me.
When I finally stopped, I clutched the locket to my chest.
“I think she’s proud of me,” I whispered.
May you like
Liam kissed my forehead.
“I know she is,” he said.
