Chapter 120

• Eloise
• I sat stiff-backed on the bench, the leather cushion beneath me groaning every time I shifted my weight. My palms were damp, not because I was nervous, but because I was waiting for something I’d been craving since I was sixteen: justice. The courthouse buzzed with whispers. Strangers leaned close to murmur about “the Sinclair family scandal” as though it were a daytime soap. Of course it was. Their voices wove together like gnats buzzing in the heat. My eyes, though, stayed fixed on the heavy double doors at the end of the aisle. Behind them, Jadeline was waiting to be called. My stepmother. My father’s wife. The beginning of my family’s curse.
• I exhaled slowly, trying to steady my heartbeat, but the thrum inside me only grew louder. Today was the day she’d get her cup of tea served piping hot. And I wanted to watch her drink every bitter drop of it.