Ten years. That' s how long I' d spent in Ironwood, a frozen hell disguised as a "rehabilitation" facility, stripped bare.
Finally, I was home, a woman I barely recognized, clinging to Marcus and Leo' s hollow promises of normalcy.
I just wanted peace, to be safe. The recycled air inside felt foreign after the clean Alaskan crispness.
But peace was a cruel illusion.
I overheard them talking, my husband and my son, their voices low and urgent.
"She took the fall," Marcus confessed, "It was convenient."
My blood ran cold.
The "Aegis data breach" that stole a decade of my life was no accident of negligence, but a calculated frame-up by my own family to protect Vivian.
Their "sympathy" was a meticulously constructed performance.
My husband, the man who comforted me, was having an affair with my adoptive sister, Vivian, who now held my former title.
She paraded in front of me wearing the gown Marcus had commissioned for my anniversary.