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A thousand miles away, Seraphina was in a hospital bed, watching the news cover Damien.

She glanced once, then looked away.

The news filled in the rest. She had a decent picture of what had happened after she left.

Damien hadn't ended up with Vivienne. He'd thrown her out and tried to roll back the divorce at the clerk's office.

He knew Vivienne had "killed" her. He'd lost his mind over it. He'd punished her. He'd gone after everyone else who had ever touched Seraphina, especially the man who'd called himself a psychiatrist.

He had handled her "funeral." He was reportedly keeping vigil at her grave every day.

His sudden repentance moved nothing in her. If anything, it was a little absurd.

For a year she'd hated him. She'd hated the disbelief. She'd hated how he'd hurt her family to clean up Vivienne's reputation.

But by the time he'd asked her to drop the malpractice complaint to save Vivienne's career, by the time he'd run a car over her brother's limbs, by the time he'd handed her to that man with the medical license — there wasn't hate left.

She just wanted to be far away from him.

Forever.

She hoped she'd never see him again in her life.

Now she felt nothing when she saw his name. No hate. No affection. Whatever about him hit the news slid right off her.

As for why she'd left him that file — she'd used him. She knew him. She knew even after everything, there was still something in him that was hers. So while he was busy being tortured by the truth, she'd used his hand to punish Vivienne. That had been the plan from the start.

She had swallowed a year of this woman's malice to pull this off. Vivienne had kept escalating. She was owed a reckoning.

Now she was getting one. Goal met. Seraphina wasn't going to track him again.