But something inside me rose anyway—slow and steady—the way a mother stands even when her legs feel like they’re made of stone.
“No,” I said, and my voice didn’t sound like mine. “She wasn’t manipulated. She was scared. And even then… she got this ready. Do you know what that is?”
I swallowed hard.
“That’s brave.”
My daughter was brave.
The woman in red took a step backward like the floor had shifted.
“I—I didn’t know,” she stammered. “He told me she was sick. He told me she exaggerated. He said she was dramatic—”
No one answered her.
Because in that moment, her excuse didn’t matter. The truth did.
And the truth had just been read out loud in front of a casket.
Daniel folded the document closed.
“The reading is complete,” he said. “Any challenge must proceed through legal channels.”
Ethan dropped back into the pew, suddenly smaller than the suit he wore. No longer the man who strutted into a funeral like a celebration.
Just a man staring at something he thought would never catch him.
