“Enjoy the cold, Miles,” I said softly. “I hear federal prison gets very chilly.”
Six months later, the difference between our lives felt almost unreal.
Miles and Brielle no longer wore designer suits or elegant black mourning clothes. They sat in a guarded federal courtroom in orange jumpsuits and handcuffs.
The trial was a massacre.
My testimony, the signed fraudulent documents, the audio captured at the memorial, the evidence from the insurance claim, and the agents who witnessed the perjury left them nowhere to hide.
The judge was visibly disgusted by the cruelty of it all—an attempted murder of a heavily pregnant woman for an insurance payout.
Bail had been denied.
Their assets were seized.
Their reputations were destroyed.
And in the end, they were convicted on every major count.
Miles and Brielle were sentenced to spend the rest of their lives behind bars.
Across the city, far away from courtrooms and concrete cells, sunlight poured through the enormous windows of the nursery at the Sterling family estate.
The room was warm, peaceful, and safe.
I sat in a velvet rocking chair, holding Oliver against my chest. Recovery from the fall had been brutal, but every day I healed. The scar on my cheek had faded into a thin silver line.
I no longer hated it.
It proved I had lived.
Oliver giggled in my arms, wrapped in a soft cashmere blanket. His tiny hand curled around my finger.
He was safe.
He would never remember the cliff.
He would never know the cruelty of the man who shared his blood.
And he would never be unprotected.
Everett stood in the doorway, watching us with fierce pride.
