Chapter 8
Summer was perfect.
Nora bought a small house on a lake an hour outside the city. It wasn’t big. Three bedrooms. A wrap-around porch. A dock where Sophie could fish.
It was theirs.
No bad memories. No ghosts. Just sun on the water, fireflies at night, the sound of loons calling across the lake.
Arthur moved into the guest house. He gardened. He fished. He taught Sophie how to skip stones.
Mia and Jax got engaged in July. They had a small wedding on the beach by the lake. Sophie was the flower girl. She threw daisies instead of rose petals.
Life was good.
But Nora knew the hard parts weren’t over.
In August, Bianca came back.
She showed up at the foundation’s main office one afternoon, wearing a tight white dress, her hair done, her lips filled too full.
The receptionist called Nora.
“There’s a Bianca Carter here to see you,” she said. “Says it’s urgent.”
Nora sighed.
“Send her in.”
Bianca walked in. She sat down across from Nora’s desk, crossed her legs, and smiled.
“Long time no see,” she said.
Nora didn’t smile back.
“What do you want, Bianca?”
Bianca pulled a manila envelope out of her bag. Slid it across the desk.
“I’m writing a book,” she said. “About the whole Ward family mess. My side of the story. How Sylvia manipulated me. How Evan lied to me. How I was just a poor, innocent girl caught in the crossfire.”
She paused.
“I’m also in talks to do a reality show. Real Housewives of the Tri-State Area. The network loves my ‘redemption arc.’”
Nora stared.
“Good for you,” she said. “Why are you here?”
Bianca’s smile got wider.
“Because,” she said, “the book has a lot of details about you. About your marriage. About Sophie. Some of it might be… unflattering. The network thinks drama sells. And I have a lot of drama.”
She leaned forward.
“But I’m a reasonable person. If you give me five hundred thousand dollars, I’ll take out all the parts about you and Sophie. I’ll even say nice things about the foundation. Win-win.”
Nora didn’t move.
“Are you blackmailing me?” she said quietly.
Bianca laughed.
“Call it what you want. Five hundred grand. Chump change for you. Or I release the book. And the tapes.”
Nora’s blood ran cold.
“Tapes?”
Bianca pulled her phone out. Tapped the screen.
A voice filled the room.
Evan’s voice. Drunk. Slurred.
“…Nora’s so boring. She never wants to have fun. Sophie’s such a brat, always crying. Can’t wait until I get full custody. I’ll send her to boarding school in Switzerland. Never have to see her again…”
The recording cut off.
Bianca smiled.
“I recorded everything,” she said. “Every time Evan ran his mouth. Every time Sylvia talked about her plans. I have hundreds of hours. Some of it is really bad. The press will eat it up. Your perfect little hero image? Gone. People will feel sorry for Evan. Say you railroaded him. The foundation will lose donors. All those poor women you help? They’ll be out on the street again. All because you wouldn’t write a check.”
She stood up.
“You have forty-eight hours,” she said. “Or I send everything to every news outlet in the country.”
She walked out.
Nora sat perfectly still for a long time.
She thought of the foundation. Of the women and kids who depended on her. Of Sophie. Of the life she’d worked so hard to build.
Five hundred thousand dollars was nothing. She could write the check today and never miss it.
But she wouldn’t.
She’d spent too long letting people bully her. Letting people take from her. Letting people threaten her.
Not again.
She called Jax.
Twenty minutes later, he was in her office. She played him the recording. Told him what Bianca had said.
Jax smiled. That same not-nice smile he’d had on Christmas morning.
“Perfect,” he said.
“Perfect?” Nora said. “She’s gonna destroy us.”
Jax shook his head.
“Nora,” he said. “Bianca just admitted to two felonies. Extortion. And illegal wiretapping. In this state, recording someone without their consent is a five-year felony. And the threats? That’s another ten.”
He leaned forward.
“Did you record our conversation?”
Nora nodded. She recorded every meeting in her office. Standard policy.
“Even better,” Jax said.
He stood up.
“Here’s what we do. We don’t give her a dime. We go to the DA. We give him the recording of her threatening you. We press charges. And while we’re at it? We file a civil suit. Defamation. Intentional infliction of emotional distress. We ask for twenty million dollars in damages.”
Nora stared.
“Twenty million?”
“Twenty million,” Jax said. “She wants to play dirty? We bury her. She’ll be paying us for the rest of her life. She’ll never be able to get a loan, buy a house, get a credit card. Every dollar she makes on that stupid book, that stupid reality show? It goes to the foundation. Forever.”
He paused.
“Unless you’d rather pay her. Your call.”
Nora thought about it.
She thought of Bianca in her house, wearing her clothes, holding her husband’s hand.
She thought of Bianca laughing, saying she’d be Sophie’s new mommy.
She thought of all the women in the shelters who’d been blackmailed, threatened, told they were worth nothing.
“Bury her,” she said.
Jax grinned.
“With pleasure.”
Forty-eight hours later, Bianca was arrested at her hotel. The police found hundreds of hours of illegal recordings on her laptop.
She pled guilty a month later. Got three years probation. A permanent felony record.
The civil suit went to trial in October.
The jury awarded Nora twenty-two million dollars.
Every penny went to the Sophie Foundation.
May you like
Bianca left the state again. No one heard from her after that.
Nora never saw her again.
