It was Rachel.
I’m sorry. I should have asked questions.
Amelia paused beside the driver’s door.
For a long moment, she watched the message glow on the screen.
Then she typed back.
Start now.
She drove away from the lodge as the first sunlight touched the road.
Behind her, the reunion banners sagged in the damp morning air. Ahead of her, there would be reports, hearings, depositions, and a criminal case that would take months to untangle.
The house in Alexandria would eventually be seized back.
Mara would testify.
Evan would talk because men like him always did when prison became more real than loyalty.
Diane and Harold would hire lawyers and tell anyone who listened that their daughter had destroyed the family over a misunderstanding.
But Amelia knew the truth.
The family had not been destroyed when the marshals walked through the lodge doors.
It had been destroyed the moment her parents looked at something she had built, something they did not understand, and decided their entitlement mattered more than her consent.
The warrants only made it official.
