Chapter 28
A period of quiet stability settled over the mansion.
The storm had passed. The wounds, both physical and emotional, were beginning to heal.
Ethan recovered quickly, his focus entirely on Sarah and Lily.
Life fell into a gentle rhythm.
School days for Lily. Quiet evenings for Sarah and Ethan.
Laughter echoed through the grand rooms that had once been filled with tension and despair.
But Ethan knew there was one final, unresolved issue.
Olivia Vance.
She was in a secure psychiatric facility, awaiting trial.
But her poison, her capacity for harm, still lingered in his mind.
He wouldn’t rest until he knew, with absolute certainty, that she could never hurt his family again.
He resolved to seek a different kind of retribution.
Not violence. Not revenge in the old, dark way.
But justice. And a final, definitive end to her influence.
He initiated a plan, quiet, calculated.
Using his remaining influence, his legal team.
Olivia began to experience her own kind of torment.
Not physical. But psychological.
The walls of her sterile room seemed to close in on her.
She felt constantly watched. Unsettling whispers seemed to echo in the silence.
Her past misdeeds, her cruelty, her manipulations, played on a loop in her mind.
She had no visitors. No allies.
Her wealth, which she had used as a weapon, was frozen, tied up in legal battles initiated by Ethan’s team, claims from her victims.
She was alone.
With her madness.
One day, she was told there was a visitor.
Ethan.
He stood in the stark visiting room, looking at her through the reinforced glass.
He was calm. His eyes, clear and steady.
“Why are you doing this to me, Ethan?” she rasped, her voice hoarse, her appearance disheveled.
“This isn’t me doing this to you, Olivia,” Ethan said, his voice devoid of emotion. “This is you. This is the consequence of your choices. Your actions.”
He didn’t need to list them. She knew.
Her attempts to ruin Sarah. Her lies. Her manipulations. Her abduction of Lily. Her attempt to murder them all.
“You blame Sarah for your misfortunes, Olivia,” Ethan continued. “But Sarah is a survivor. She endured. She loved. She sacrificed. You … you only knew how to hate. How to destroy.”
Olivia showed no remorse. Only a bitter, consuming resentment.
“She stole you from me!” Olivia shrieked, her voice cracking.
Ethan shook his head slowly.
“No one stole me, Olivia. I chose. I chose light over darkness. I chose love over hate. I chose Sarah.”
His voice was firm. Final.
“Your downfall, Olivia, is entirely of your own making. You built your own prison.”
Olivia lunged at the glass, screaming obscenities, her face contorted with rage.
Ethan watched her, a flicker of pity, perhaps, but no remorse for his actions.
He had ensured she would face the full extent of the law.
He had ensured she would never be a threat again.
He turned and walked away, leaving Olivia to her demons, to the justice she so richly deserved.
He felt no satisfaction. No triumph.
Only a quiet sense of closure.
The final ghost of his past had been laid to rest.
He could finally, truly, move forward.
With Sarah. With Lily.
Into the future they deserved.