Chapter 2
The car ride home was silent except for Sophie’s quiet sniffles. She’d fallen asleep halfway, her head resting on my lap, the remaining wildflowers still clutched in her fist.
I carried her inside, tucked her into bed, and sat on the edge of her mattress until her breathing evened out. Her arm still had a faint purple bruise in the shape of Victoria’s fingers. I traced it with my thumb, my chest so tight I could barely breathe.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. The board of Langford Industries.
I stepped into the hallway, closing the door softly behind me, and answered.
“Ms. Hale,” said a voice I recognized—Arthur Voss, the company’s oldest board member, his tone shaking. “We’re all on the line. All twelve of us. Is it true? You own 47% of the voting stock?”
“It’s true,” I said.
A collective gasp crackled through the speaker.
“That’s impossible,” said another voice. Roland Langford. Victoria’s father. The man who’d run the company for forty years, who’d built his reputation on being untouchable. His voice was thick with rage. “We would have known. We track every share—”
“You tracked the ones you could see,” I said. “I bought them through twelve separate shell companies over six years. Starting the day your Westside project collapsed and you paid off the coroner to call it an accident.”
Silence. Thick, heavy, guilty silence.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Roland said, but his voice had lost its bite.
“We both do,” I said. “And by the end of this week, every person in Texas will know it too. The emergency meeting is at my office at 9 a.m. tomorrow. Be there. Or I’ll call a press conference tonight and release every document I have. Your choice.”
I hung up before he could answer.
I leaned against the hallway wall, sliding down until I was sitting on the floor. For six years, I’d been building my case against the Langfords. I’d started buying their stock the day I’d read about the Westside collapse in the paper, the day I’d held a then-two-year-old Sophie in my arms and thought that could have been her.
I’d planned to take them down slowly. Quietly. Ruin them financially, make them sell off their assets, disappear from public life.
But Victoria had touched my daughter.
All bets were off.
A small creak made me look up. Sophie was standing in her doorway, her favorite stuffed rabbit tucked under one arm, her eyes puffy.
“Mommy?” she whispered.
I stood, opening my arms, and she ran into them. I carried her back to bed, climbing in beside her, wrapping the covers around both of us.
“Who was that on the phone?” she asked.
“Just work,” I said.
“Was it the mean lady?”
I hesitated. “No, baby. It wasn’t her.”
“Is she going to hurt us?”
I kissed the top of her head, breathing in her strawberry shampoo. “No. She’s never going to hurt anyone ever again. I promise.”
Sophie was quiet for a long time. I thought she’d fallen back asleep when she spoke again, her voice so small I almost missed it.
“Why didn’t anyone help me?”
My heart broke. Right there, in the dark of her bedroom, it shattered into a million tiny pieces.
I rolled onto my side, looking her in the eye. “Because they were scared, baby. Scared of her name. Scared of losing their money and their jobs and their fancy parties.”
“That’s stupid,” she said.
I let out a wet, shaky laugh. “Yeah. It is.”
“Would you have helped?” she asked. “If it was another little girl?”
I brushed a strand of hair off her face. “I would have burned the whole room down before I let anyone take her.”
Sophie snuggled closer, her head resting on my chest. “I love you, Mommy.”
“I love you too, baby. More than anything in the whole world.”
She fell asleep again, but I lay awake long after, staring at the ceiling. Tomorrow was going to be war. The Langfords had more money, more lawyers, more friends in high places than I could count.
But they didn’t have something I did.
They didn’t have a reason to fight until their last breath.
May you like
I had Sophie.
And for her, I would tear the entire state of Texas apart brick by brick if I had to.
