chapter 23
He staggered back a step, as if the word had struck him.
Then he looked at me again, and something far worse than anger entered his expression.
Understanding.
He saw it. Not all of it, not the daily details of my suffering, but enough. Enough to realize what ten years of vengeance had actually been built on. Enough to know the woman he had called guilty had walked into this life and recoiled from his touch before he had ever laid a hand on her in this timeline.
His voice cracked on my name.
I hated that part of me still reacted to it.
“Nora…”
“No.” My throat burned. “You don’t get to say it like that.”
He swallowed hard. “I remember pieces.”
So did I.
The basement. The whip. The bed. The moments after, when sometimes he had stood by the door with his hands shaking as if some splinter of him knew he had crossed beyond what even hatred could justify.
It changed nothing.
I lifted the envelope in my hand. “There are statements here. Insurance records. financial trails. Testimony about coercion, fraud, identity falsification, and corporate interference. Enough to bury reputations, if not all of you.”
Ethan didn’t move.
“I could destroy you,” I said. “A part of me has wanted that for longer than you can imagine.”
His eyes closed once, briefly.
When he opened them, he looked older.
“I know.”