Six months later, I stood on the rooftop of the Varela Foundation’s new legal clinic.
The city stretched out beneath me, lit in soft evening gold.
Priya handed me a glass of champagne.
I looked at it.
Paused.
She caught the hesitation.
“Too soon?” she asked quietly.
I smiled.
Not the kind I used to give to keep peace.
A real one.
“No,” I said. “Not anymore.”
I took the glass.
Held it steady.
Because this time—
I chose it.
Below us, the city moved the way it always had.
Unaware.
Unchanged.
But my world—
Had been rewritten.
My name was still mine.
My grandfather’s company was intact.
The estate—
Protected.
And somewhere behind locked doors, court orders, and consequences finally enforced—
The people who had planned to leave me with nothing…
Understood what that actually meant.
I raised my glass toward the skyline.
Because peace—
Wasn’t what I thought it would be.
It wasn’t quiet forgiveness.
It wasn’t forgetting.
Sometimes—
Peace is something else entirely.
Sometimes—
Peace is the moment everything ends exactly the way it should have.
Clean.
