88At my own birthday party, my husband tied me to a ceiling beam and whipped me thirty times because I had spilled wine on his mistress’s dress. He laughed as fifty guests watched me endure the humiliation, but when they finally cut me down, I made one phone call to my five brothers, and seconds later, the mansion gates slammed shut.

With Ethan secured in a maximum-security state penitentiary, the remaining pieces of his former life began to disintegrate like dry leaves in a winter wind.

Three months after the trial, I visited the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women to fulfill a single, personal obligation.

The visitation room was small, cold, and smelled of stale floor wax. Victoria Kane sat on the opposite side of a scratched plastic divider, wearing her orange jumpsuit, her hair limp and dull, her manicured nails long gone.

When I sat down across from her, wearing an ivory silk blouse and a charcoal wool coat, Victoria looked at me with a bitter, hollow stare.

"Came to laugh?" Victoria asked, her voice raspy from months of prison air. "Came to see the mistress in her cage?"

"No," I said, placing my hands neatly on my lap. "I came to give you this."

I slid an envelope across the counter.

Victoria frowned, opening it with trembling fingers. Inside was a legal receipt showing that her father's company, Kane Logistics, had been fully acquired by Sterling Global, saved from bankruptcy, and restructured under new management.

"Why?" Victoria asked, her eyes widening in confusion. "Why would you save my father's business? I helped Ethan ruin your life."

"You didn't help him ruin my life, Victoria," I said calmly. "You were just a tool he used because he was too weak to fight me himself. Your father is an honest man who spent forty years building a company. He shouldn't lose his livelihood because his daughter possessed more ambition than character."

Victoria stared at the document, tears welling in her tired eyes. "I... I thought you hated me."

"I don't hate you, Victoria," I replied, standing up and buttoning my coat. "Hate requires energy. And you are simply not worth the exertion. You have four years left on your sentence. Use them to learn how to stand on your own feet instead of relying on broken men to build a foundation for you."

I turned and walked toward the heavy steel door.

"Clara!" Victoria called out, her voice cracking.

I paused, looking back over my shoulder.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her head bowed toward the plastic counter. "I really am."

"I know," I said softly. "And that's the difference between you and Ethan. You can feel remorse. He only feels regret for getting caught."

When I stepped out of the prison gates into the crisp winter air, Gabriel was waiting beside a sleek black sedan, holding the door open for me.

"How was she?" Gabriel asked as I slid into the leather seat.

"Broken," I said, looking out the window as the prison walls receded into the distance. "But fixable. Unlike Ethan."

"Speaking of Ethan," Gabriel said, sliding into the driver's seat and turning on the ignition. "He filed another appeal today. Claimed his legal representation was incompetent."

"Let him file a thousand appeals," I smiled faintly, pulling a soft cashmere scarf around my neck. "Every time he files one, Christopher buys another one of his family's old real estate properties and turns it into a women's shelter."