Bradley had asked for it back months earlier.
He told me he suspected she still had a copy, but he wanted peace, not another argument.
Now she stood there, using that old access like it was ownership.
Fiona yanked open Bradley’s desk drawer.
Papers shifted.
Something inside me tightened.
‘Don’t touch that,’ I said.
She turned, her expression laced with a kind of cruel satisfaction.
‘And who are you now?’ she asked.
‘A widow.
That’s all.’
There are words that wound.
And there are words that clarify.
That one clarified everything.
I laughed.
It broke out before I could stop it.
Not soft, not embarrassed, not unsteady.
It was the laugh of a woman who had just realized the people in front of her had walked straight into a trap set by the one man they had underestimated his entire life.
Every head turned.
Marjorie’s expression hardened.
‘Have you lost your mind?’
I brushed beneath one eye and finally met her gaze properly for the first time that day.
‘No,’ I said.
