Chapter 8
Time slowed down.
I saw the knife coming.
Saw the rage on Helen’s face.
I didn’t run.
I didn’t flinch.
I’d spent my whole life preparing for people like her.
I stepped to the side at the last second.
Grabbed her wrist.
Twisted hard.
The knife clattered to the floor.
The security guards tackled her to the ground a second later.
They cuffed her, pulled her up, her screaming and kicking, yelling curses at me, at Lila, at the whole world.
“You’ll pay for this!” she shrieked. “I’ll burn everything you love to the ground! You’ll never be safe! Never!”
They dragged her away.
I stood there, my wrist throbbing, breathing hard.
Elias ran to me.
“Are you okay?” he said, checking me for cuts.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Get Lila. Get Claire. Bring them to my new office. Now.”
My new office was on the top floor.
Floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the whole city.
Lila and Claire ran in 10 minutes later.
Lila threw herself into my arms.
She’d seen the police cars outside.
Heard the yelling.
“I’m okay,” I said, kissing her. “I’m fine. Everything is okay.”
I sat them down on the couch.
Told them what happened.
Told them Helen was going back to jail.
That this time, she wouldn’t get out.
The district attorney’s office called an hour later.
Helen’s bail was revoked.
She was being charged with attempted assault, intimidation of a CEO, violation of her restraining order, and 17 other counts from the forgery and conspiracy cases.
She was facing 25 years in prison.
Minimum.
She’d be in her 90s before she got out.
If she ever got out.
I hung up.
Took a deep breath.
The war was over.
Helen was done.
The next three months were the happiest of my life.
I settled into the CEO role at Langford.
I implemented the raises and benefits I’d promised.
Opened two new factories.
Hired 2,000 new employees.
The company’s stock jumped 40% in the first 90 days.
Claire moved into the new house I’d bought.
A big, white farmhouse on 10 acres, with a pool, a barn, a huge yard for Lila to run in.
No more hotels.
No more security guards inside the house.
Just a big fence, a nice alarm system, and peace.
Claire started working at Langford, running the new community outreach program.
She was good at it.
Happy.
She’d finally found her place.
Mark came around once a week for supervised visitation with Lila.
He’d lost his job at Veridian the day the embezzlement came out.
He’d had to sell his fancy car, his fancy watch, move into a small apartment.
Helen had disowned him from jail, screaming that he was a failure, that he’d never been man enough to stand up to me.
He was broken.
But he was trying.
He went to anger management.
Parenting classes.
He never yelled.
Never argued.
He just sat on the floor and played with Lila for two hours every week, then left quietly.
Lila started calling him “Daddy” again.
Not all the time.
But sometimes.
She went back to school.
Made new friends.
Joined the soccer team.
Started drawing again, filling whole sketchbooks with pictures of our family, of our house, of the sun.
She never flinched when the phone rang anymore.
Never hid behind my legs when she saw an older woman with gray hair.
The nightmares stopped.
The court date for Helen’s trial came six months after her arrest.
It was a media circus.
Cameras lined the courthouse steps.
Reporters yelled questions at me every time I walked in.
Claire testified first.
She told the whole story.
The abuse.
The forged will.
Helen paying off the police.
Paying Voss.
Paying the con artist.
Everything.
Then I testified.
Then Mrs. Lopez.
Then the pediatrician.
Then Thomas and Roger, telling the court about Helen’s manipulation.
The prosecution didn’t even need to call Mark.
The evidence was overwhelming.
The jury deliberated for four hours.
They came back guilty on every single count.
The judge sentenced her to 28 years in a maximum-security prison.
No parole.
No early release.
As the guards led her out of the courtroom, Helen looked over at me.
For the first time in my life, there was no anger on her face.
No arrogance.
No cruelty.
Just emptiness.
She didn’t say a word.
She just looked away.
We walked out of the courthouse into the warm summer sun.
Lila was waiting for me on the steps, holding a drawing.
Claire next to her.
Mark a few feet back, giving us space.
Lila ran to me.
Held up the drawing.
It was of all of us.
Me.
Her.
Claire.
Mark.
Standing in front of our big white house, the sun shining, a rainbow over the roof.
“Can we go home now, Mommy?” she said.
I picked her up.
Kissed her forehead.
Looked out at the city I now helped run.
At the family I’d built, not the one I’d married into.
At the life I’d fought so hard for.
May you like
I smiled.
“Yeah, baby,” I said. “We can go home. Forever.”
