My stomach plummeted. The timing. Their age. Their faces. It felt like I had stepped off a cliff in the dark.
Before I could form a word, Tessa rolled down her window. “Well, Maren,” she called out, her voice bright and venomous. “Looks like life turned out exactly the way you deserved.”
I turned to Tessa, stunned. Even believing Maren had betrayed me—the faked bank records, the staged hotel photos I’d found a year ago—Tessa’s cruelty felt deeply, fundamentally wrong.
Maren didn’t flinch. She didn’t hurl an insult. She simply looked at me. Only me. And what I saw in her eyes was the sadness of someone who had watched a man burn down his own sanctuary.
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“Drive,” Tessa snapped, the mask slipping for a fraction of a second.
Beside me, Tessa reached into her Prada purse, pulled out a crisp twenty-dollar bill, and tossed it through the open window. It fluttered down, landing in the red dirt at Maren’s feet. “Here,” Tessa smiled. “Buy the bastards some milk.”
