At the bottom was a note from Marcus Caldwell, Garrett’s business partner.
I should have spoken up four years ago. I was a coward. I documented everything. I’m sorry it took me this long. This is enough to reopen your case.
And beneath that was a note from Julian.
You don’t have to hide us anymore. Let me stand beside you. You deserve to walk into that room like you own the world. Because you do.
I sat on the kitchen floor, surrounded by proof and pain and possibility.
Then I called my sister.
Diane arrived like a storm. She read the invitation, then the evidence, and looked at me with blazing eyes.
“He invited you to his wedding on your anniversary?”
“Yes.”
“And he wrote ‘no hard feelings’?”
“Yes.”
Diane dropped the invitation onto the counter like it was contaminated. “Please tell me you’re not going.”
I looked at the invitation. Then the papers. Then my sister.
“I think I am.”
That was the first time in four years I smiled—and it wasn’t a soft smile. It was the kind that comes right before a woman stops apologizing for her existence.
