The day I left the hospital, I didn't go to a hotel. I rented a tiny studio apartment on the edge of the city. It was small—barely large enough for a bed and a small table. The walls were thin, and the air smelled of dust and old paint, but it was the first place in five years that felt safe.
I didn't have any luggage. I had left the Vanguard house with nothing but the clothes on my back and one item I had scavenged from the trash: a rusted, locked metal box.
I sat on the bare floor, the box on my lap. The hinges were corroded from being tossed in the dumpster, and the lock was jammed tight with grit. I didn't have a key. I pulled a hairpin from my messy bun and jammed it into the mechanism, twisting it violently. The metal groaned and slipped. A jagged edge of the lid sliced into my fingertip. A bead of blood welled up and dripped onto the floor. I didn't flinch. After everything, a cut finger felt like nothing.
With a final snap, the lid popped open. I held my breath.
Inside lay the remnants of the life I had thrown away for a man who didn't love me. There were keys to an encrypted crypto-wallet, a hard drive containing the core data files from the old Heritage Group, and a leather-bound notebook—a list of private contacts my father had cultivated for forty years. But what hit me hardest was a yellowed photograph at the bottom.
It was my parents, before their hair turned gray and their smiles faded. They were holding me between them. I was wearing a pink princess dress, grinning like I owned the world. Behind us hung a banner: Heritage Group Grand Opening.
My throat tightened. I remembered the antique emerald necklace I was wearing in that photo. Years later, I had secretly sold it for three million dollars. And what did I do with the money? I spent a million of it on a rare ruby brooch for Alistair's mother. I remembered handing it to her, hoping for a smile, a kind word. Instead, she had barely glanced at it, offered a cold "thank you," and set it aside without another word. I had liquidated my mother's legacy to buy the affection of a family that saw me as nothing more than a servant.
I closed my eyes, and the image of the last board meeting flashed in my mind. My father was so sick by then that his hand shook as he signed the liquidation papers. I had to steady his wrist. He was signing away the company he'd built from nothing. If I hadn't been so hell-bent on marrying Alistair, if I hadn't been so desperate to be the perfect, submissive housewife, my father would never have had to dissolve the company to fund the wedding and cover the debts I'd hidden from him.
He had looked at me that day. He didn't say a word of blame.
I finally understood that look now. It wasn't disappointment. It was fear. He knew he was dying. He knew Alistair didn't love me. He was terrified that once he was gone, I would be left defenseless in a world of wolves. He had left me this box because he knew, sooner or later, they would break me.
I sat in the middle of that empty, silent apartment and wiped the tears from my face.
Alistair is probably celebrating right now, thinking I'll come crawling back once the money runs out. He's waiting for me to show up at his door, crying and begging.
He's wrong.
I looked at the hard drive and the contact list in my hands. The old Evelyn—the one who craved love—died in that hospital room.
I'm going to make him watch me stand back up. I'm going to make him watch as I climb higher than he ever could, and then I'm going to use him as a stepping stone.
Living a hundred times better than I ever did with him—that's the only revenge that matters.