Fiona dropped the tax documents back into the drawer as if they had suddenly turned into hot coals. She looked at Marjorie, her eyes wide with fear. “Marjorie, we need to go. We shouldn’t be here.”
“No!” Marjorie hissed, though her voice lacked its previous venom. She looked at me, her eyes burning with hatred. “You think you’ve won? You think you can just erase us? We are his family!”
I took a deep breath. The raw pain in my feet seemed to fade, replaced by a quiet, solid strength. I looked at the woman who had spent our entire marriage trying to make me feel small, trying to convince Bradley that I was nothing more than a temporary fixture in his life.
“You were his relatives, Marjorie,” I said, my voice steady and clear. “But you were never his family. If you had been, you would have spent his last days holding his hand in that hospital room instead of searching his house for a deed. You would have asked how I was doing instead of telling me to pack my bags. Bradley knew exactly what you would do. He warned me. And he made sure that the home we built together would always be my sanctuary.”
I pointed to the suitcases lined up in the hallway. “Unpack them. Every single item. Put his shirts back on the hangers. Put the papers back in the desk. And then, you are going to leave.”
Declan looked at Marjorie, then at the building manager, who was already on his phone, likely calling security or the police to cover his own mistakes. Without a word, Declan unzipped the suitcase he had just closed and began pulling out Bradley’s sweaters, dumping them onto the sofa in a messy, defeated pile. Fiona quickly followed suit, her hands shaking as she emptied her bags.
Marjorie stood frozen for a long moment, looking at the brass wrench in her hand. Slowly, deliberately, she dropped it onto the dining table. It made a loud, echoing clatter.
“This isn’t over,” she whispered, but the threat was empty, a desperate attempt to salvage whatever dignity she had left.
“It is,” Elena said, closing her folder with a decisive snap. “My firm has already filed a restraining order against all of you on behalf of Mrs. Hale. If any of you attempt to contact her, enter this building, or approach her place of employment, you will be arrested immediately. I suggest you walk out of here and never look back.”
