POV Jocelyn

When laughter replaced the sound of reporters camping outside our building. When the ink dried on the last foundation contract. When I could actually take Mia to the park without photographers treating us like zoo animals.

Just when peace started feeling real—danger slithered back into our lives.

But it didn’t come with fire or fists or midnight break-ins.

It came with diamonds, perfectly applied lipstick, and a lawsuit designed to cut deeper than any physical weapon ever could.

Vivienne fucking Ashford.

Out on bail and apparently untethered by basic human decency. She’d decided that if she couldn’t destroy us through vandalism and stalking, she’d try to bleed us dry through the legal system.

Because nothing says “I’m a stable human being” like filing a ten-million-dollar lawsuit against the family whose daughter you terrorized.

“She’s asking for ten million,” Landon announced.

He tossed the legal packet onto Zayden’s desk with a slap that echoed through his office like a gunshot.

“Defamation, emotional distress, breach of engagement contract.”

I watched Zayden’s face go from neutral to arctic in approximately three seconds.

His jaw clenched as he flipped through pages, eyes scanning legal bullshit with the cold precision of someone calculating exactly how to destroy another human being.

“She’ll get nothing but a lifetime ban from breathing the same air as my family,” he muttered, voice carrying enough ice to freeze hell solid.

I stood by the window, Mia’s coloring book pressed against my chest like armor.

We’d been drawing butterflies—small pink ones with heart-shaped wings, because she’d decided butterflies were “brave for being so pretty in a world full of mean things.”

Now the page was smudged, my fingers still stained with blue wax, and I was staring at my reflection in glass that cost more than most people’s cars.

The silence that followed wasn’t fear.

It was a clarity. Pure, crystalline, absolutely lethal clarity.

“I’m done being silent,” I said, voice steady as a heartbeat.

Not shaking. Not rising to match the fury burning in my chest.

Just settling in the air like the truth finally finding its voice.

Zayden turned toward me, and I saw recognition flicker in his eyes. He was witnessing the exact moment I stopped being someone who survived other people’s cruelty and became someone who dismantled it with surgical precision.

Landon blinked but said nothing, probably sensing he was about to watch someone declare war on a very stupid enemy.

The next morning, I stood alone beneath the steel logo of the Wolfe-Hartwell Foundation headquarters.

No podium, no prepared statement written by lawyers, no corporate damage control team telling me what I could and couldn’t say.

Just me. My voice. My fucking truth.

I wore a navy-blue suit that fit like armor—sleek, structured, strong enough to deflect bullets and bullshit in equal measure.

Hair pinned back in a twist that meant business, shoes clicking across pavement with the kind of quiet force that makes smart people pay attention.

The press crowded close like vultures sensing fresh meat, flashes exploding, microphones extended toward me like weapons.

I didn’t blink.

“I will not be shamed for surviving,” I began, tone even but razor-edged enough to cut glass. “I will not be punished for protecting my child. I won’t let anyone rewrite my story or pretend that love is a crime worth prosecuting.”

The silence after was thunderous.

Then came the clicks, the cheers, the flood of recognition from people who’d been waiting for someone to say what they’d been thinking.

The clip went viral faster than gossip in a small town. Support poured in from corners of the internet I didn’t know existed.

Women posted their own stories, mothers held their children tighter, survivors found their voices because I’d finally found mine.

The Wolfe-Hartwell Foundation’s inbox exploded with letters of solidarity and donation pledges.

My name was no longer whispered in gossip columns like a dirty secret. It was chanted in protest marches, painted across murals, respected in ways I’d never imagined possible.

But the universe wasn’t done serving justice with a side of poetic irony.

By midday, a new video surfaced online. Security footage, grainy but devastating—the kind of evidence that destroys lives and exposes truth in high definition.

There was Vivienne, coat draped over one arm like she was posing for Vogue, casually slipping something into my purse just outside Wolfe Tower.

The camera zoomed in on her hands, time-stamped and undeniable.

A tracking device. Because apparently stalking me wasn’t enough—she’d wanted to make it high-tech.

The lawsuit collapsed faster than a house of cards in a hurricane.

Vivienne’s lawyers scrambled to withdraw claims like they were fleeing a sinking ship. Her PR team issued some weak statement that was immediately drowned by public backlash.

Hashtags exploded across every platform: #JusticeForJocelyn, #SheToldTheTruth, #SurvivorsDon’tOweSilence.

That evening, our house felt peaceful for the first time in months. Mia was asleep, cradled by soft nightlight glow and dreams about butterflies.

I sat curled in the corner of our sofa, legs tucked beneath me, hands wrapped around a mug I wasn’t actually drinking from.

Zayden sat beside me in comfortable silence, arm resting along the back of the couch, watching muted news anchors dissect our story frame by frame like it was some academic case study instead of our actual life.

“She never loved me,” he said suddenly, breaking the quiet.

I turned toward him slowly.

“Did you love her?” I asked, because sometimes the direct approach is the only one that matters.

He hesitated, then shook his head. “No. I tolerated her. Thought that was enough for whatever version of marriage my grandfather had planned.”

His voice got softer.

“Until I learned what it meant to really want someone. Not out of obligation or strategy, but out of something I couldn’t control.”

His hand found mine, fingers lacing together with the kind of warmth that still surprised me.

“I should have destroyed her the day she first threatened you,” he said quietly.

“You didn’t need to,” I whispered back. “She did it herself.”

And she had.

The following morning, Vivienne Ashford boarded a private jet to fuck-knows-where. No goodbye tour, no final press conference, no filtered apology posts on social media.

She vanished into thin air like a bad story nobody wanted to read again.

No interviews. No tell-all memoirs. No redemption arc. Her name faded from headlines, erased by her own cruelty and lies until the world stopped asking where she’d gone.

And Zayden?

He never spoke her name again. Not in passing. Not in anger. Not even in memory.