How a Dying Woman Rewrote Her Epilogue

Even Eaton was momentarily stunned.

He knew all too well what kind of person Patricia was.

Raised in privilege from birth, pampered and spoiled, her background had shaped her into someone headstrong and willful. There was nothing she wanted that she couldn't get. She'd never tasted a day's hardship. Wherever she went, people fawned over her.

And now, they were going to force her into... a rehab clinic?

That would be a devastating blow, shattering her pride and spirit alike. It was no different from grinding her face into the mud.

Jarrod understood this perfectly.

If it weren't for him, someone like Patricia would have coasted through life without

a hitch. A place like that never would've touched her, not in a million years. Even if someone else had exposed her, her family would have whisked her out of the mess without a single stain on her reputation.

But Jarrod had no intention of letting her off easy.

If you're going to wield the knife, you go for where it hurts most.

He ignored Watts's protests, focusing on Eaton instead. "Of course, there are additional conditions. For the next three years, neither the Aldridge family nor the Barnes family is to show Miss Aldridge any special treatment. She needs to undergo real... rehabilitation."

wasn't leaving her

could see the merciless

grind Patricia

Silverstein, are you really willing to make enemies of both the Aldridge and Barnes families over

was making it obvious-he was here to threaten them, all because of what happened with Elodie. He didn't care if everyone went down

all this for an unborn

done, did the Aldridges or the Barnes ever consider what it

we supposed to thank you, Mr. Silverstein?" Watts shot back, his

exactly what Jarrod meant-this was brutally pragmatic. Jarrod could afford to gamble, but the Aldridge family was in a

the Silversteins weren't just

understood this

l.n'

power. But Jarrod's reach went even further before his grandfather retired he'd held a top position in government. Even now,

Jarrod's connections were deeper than anyone could

mother's side, in Goldspire, his grandfather's influence

resources were at

a battlefield; Eaton knew full well how the game

truth, was not even his biological daughter, but the orphaned child of a close friend whom he and his

or not, he bore responsibility