Chapter 4

The arrest was a blur of flashing lights and cold metal.

The trial was a nightmare.

Brenda, on the stand, was a picture of sorrowful betrayal.

Her lies were so convincing, so heartfelt.

Mike, caught between his mother and his wife, was weak. He mumbled about stress, about me not being myself lately. He didn't defend me. He couldn't. His mother had him wrapped around her little finger.

George just echoed Brenda.

Grand larceny.

The judge' s voice was a distant drone.

Several years.

Prison was a harsh, brutal reality.

The days bled into weeks, then months, then years.

Each one a testament to Brenda' s malice and my own naivety.

The anger burned, a cold, hard knot in my stomach.

It was the only thing that kept me going.

When I was finally released, I was a ghost.

A shell of the woman I used to be.

The world outside was different, harsher.

Mike had divorced me while I was inside.

I found out through a letter from his lawyer.

He' d remarried. A woman named Tiffany. They had a baby.

My baby. The one we' d talked about, dreamed about.

He' d moved on, built a new life on the ruins of mine.

The criminal record was a brand.

No one wanted to hire an ex-con.

Apartments were impossible to find.

I drifted. Shelters. Streets.

The shame was a constant companion.

The despair was a heavy cloak.

One night, in a filthy, dimly lit room, the weight became too much.

The needle was a promise of escape.

A brief, fleeting oblivion.

Then, nothing.

Just cold.

And now, this.

This impossible, unbelievable second chance.

The anger was still there, but it wasn't just a burning knot anymore.

It was a cold, sharp instrument.

And I knew exactly how to use it.

They would all pay.

Brenda. Mike. George.

They would learn what it meant to destroy a life.

My life.

This time, I wouldn't be the victim.

I would be the orchestrator.