Chapter 8 - The AftershocksThe sound of the handcuffs clicking closed echoed through the glass lobby like a final judgment.
Drew struggled against the agents' grip, turning his head frantically to look back at us as he was forced toward the elevator bank. "Vanessa! Call my lawyer! Tell him to call your father! Maren! Please! Don't do this to me!"
Neither Vanessa nor I said a word. We watched in complete silence as the elevator doors closed, taking Drew Halston away in chains.
When the lobby finally went quiet, Vanessa let out a long, shuddering breath, sinking into one of the reception armchairs. She looked up at me, tears streaming down her face. "I'm sorry, Maren. For everything. For five years ago... for believing him when he spoke about you."
I walked over, taking a seat across from her.
"You don't need to apologize to me, Vanessa," I said gently. "Drew is a master at manipulating people who want to believe in him. You were just his latest tool."
"What am I supposed to do now?" she asked, looking utterly lost. "My marriage was a lie. My family's company is dragged into a federal scandal..."
"You file for divorce tomorrow," Gabriel Vance advised, stepping forward and handing her a business card. "And you hire a top-tier asset protection attorney to ensure your father's personal estate is completely severed from Halston Logistics before the liquidators move in."
Vanessa looked at the card, then looked up at me with a soft, genuine smile. "Thank you, Maren. After everything I did to you... you didn't have to help me."
"I didn't help you for your sake, Vanessa," I said honestly. "I did it because no woman deserves to be destroyed by a man who thinks he owns the world."
An hour later, the office was quiet again.
Owen and I walked down the marble steps of my office building into the warm afternoon sunshine of downtown Savannah. The sky was clear, blue, and wide open.
Owen held my hand tightly, his fingers intertwined with mine. "How are you feeling?"
I took a deep breath of the fresh coastal air, feeling a profound weight lifting off my chest—a weight I hadn't even realized I had been carrying for the past five years.
"I feel free," I admitted, looking up at my husband. "For five years, a small part of me wondered if Drew was right. If leaving me really was his smartest decision because I wasn't enough."
May you like
Owen stopped on the sidewalk, turning me to face him. He reached up, gently tucking a strand of dark hair behind my ear, his gray eyes shining with pure devotion.
"You were always more than enough, Maren," Owen whispered. "He was just too small a man to see it."
