Continue reading to find out what happens in the next chapter.

-13-

By April, the biting chill of the Toronto winter had finally broken, replaced by the crisp, invigorating air of an early spring.

The snow along the harbor melted away, revealing green shoots of grass pushing through the damp earth, and the city seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief as sunlight lingered longer into the evening hours.

Isla Vance Holdings had officially broken ground on the community arts center project downtown, and the site was a hive of controlled, efficient activity. Hard hats bobbed against the background of steel beams and concrete mixers, guided by clear timelines, transparent budgets, and an atmosphere of genuine collaboration that stood in stark contrast to the cutthroat, fraudulent chaos of Arden Global Enterprises.

I stood on the viewing platform overlooking the construction site, wearing a lightweight trench coat over a professional navy blazer, holding a tablet of updated engineering logs.

Elodie walked up beside me, carrying a portfolio of interior material samples.

“The acoustic paneling samples for the main auditorium just arrived from the supplier,” Elodie reported, flipping open the folder. “All sourced from certified sustainable mills in British Columbia. No shell companies, no inflated invoices, and every receipt verified against the primary ledger.”

I smiled, glancing over the sample swatches. “Excellent work, Elodie. You’ve really taken total ownership of the interior curation.”

“Well,” Elodie laughed softly, leaning against the railing and looking out at the rising steel skeleton of the building, “when you spend years working in an environment where everything is fake, you develop a deep appreciation for things that are actually built to last.”

“How is your mother taking the final divorce decree settlement?” I asked gently, knowing that Elodie still occasionally spoke with Genevieve out of reluctant familial obligation.

Elodie’s expression sobered slightly, though her posture remained unyielding. “Mom is living in a two-bedroom apartment in North York now. She’s selling off her remaining designer clothes and jewelry piece by piece just to maintain basic living expenses. She still calls me twice a week to complain about how the world has treated her unfairly, and how if I had only married into a more stable family, none of this would have happened.”

She shook her head, a quiet resolution in her eyes.

“I told her last week that if she ever mentioned you or my choices with disrespect again, I would block her number permanently. She hung up on me, of course. But for the first time in my life, I didn't feel guilty.”

I reached out and squeezed her hand. “Breaking generational conditioning is the hardest part of building a real life, Elodie. You did the hardest part.”

“We did,” Elodie corrected, smiling warmly.

We stood together on the platform for a long time, watching the cranes lift steel girders into the clear spring sky.

Across the city, Adrian Arden was serving his sentence behind the gray concrete walls of Kingston penitentiary, far away from boardrooms, luxury galas, and mistresses in red dresses. Graham Arden’s legal battles had concluded with permanent disbarment and a suspended sentence due to failing health, reducing the once-feared patriarch to a forgotten footnote in legal archives. And Genevieve was learning, day by bitter day, what it meant to live without the borrowed authority of a name built on sand.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, expecting another corporate email from Marisol regarding the final tax reconciliations for the new fiscal quarter.

Instead, it was a text from Marisol herself:

Dinner at the waterfront bistro tonight? First round of wine is on my corporate expense account.

I smiled, typing back a quick reply: Only if we’re celebrating real numbers this time.

Always, Marisol’s reply came back instantly.