Chapter 8 - The Legacy Restored
One year later.
The New York skyline glittered outside the penthouse windows.
It was the same penthouse where Victoria Langley had once ordered me to burn a priceless piece of history.
Only now, the penthouse didn’t belong to the Langleys.
It belonged to me.
Evelyn Langley was serving a thirty-year sentence in federal prison for kidnapping, fraud, and embezzlement.
She would die behind bars.
Victoria Langley had avoided jail time by testifying against her own mother, but she was entirely destitute.
The last I heard, she was working as a cashier at a department store in New Jersey.
The people who used to attend her parties now actively ignored her if they saw her ringing up their items.
The Harrington empire, meanwhile, was stronger than ever.
Richard Harrington had formally adopted me into the family trust, completely bypassing the years of red tape.
Daniel treated me not just as a cousin, but as a sister.
He was currently dating a kind, intelligent architect who didn’t care about his money at all.
And Eleanor.
My mother.
She was sitting on the velvet sofa across from me, sipping tea and reading a book.
She looked healthy.
Vibrant.
The silver in her hair was now styled elegantly, and the haunted look in her eyes had been replaced with deep, enduring peace.
I stood by the window, looking out over the city.
I wasn’t a seamstress altering clothes for cruel women anymore.
I was Anna Harrington.
I owned my own high-end design house now, funded entirely by the fortune the Langleys had stolen from us.
“Anna, darling,” my mother said.
I turned around.
She was pointing to a small glass display case resting on the mantle above the fireplace.
Inside the case, resting on a bed of dark velvet, was the strip of antique Belgian wedding lace.
And resting perfectly in the center of the lace was the heavy gold locket.
“Do you think we should have it cleaned?” she asked with a soft smile.
I walked over to the mantle.
I looked at the frayed edges of the lace.
I looked at the tiny, imperceptible stitches where I had used my seam ripper to uncover the truth.
I smiled.
“No,” I said quietly.
“I think it’s perfect exactly the way it is.”
I reached out and placed my hand against the cool glass of the display case.
Sometimes, the most broken things are the most valuable.
And sometimes, the people who try to throw you away are the exactly the ones who end up giving you the keys to the kingdom.
I looked at my mother.
She smiled back.
May you like
We had lost twenty-five years.
But we had the rest of our lives.
