---- Chapter 25 Chapter 25 Aimee Ramirez POV: Two years later. The house upstate was no longer a battleground; it was a sanctuary. The scars of that terrible night had been erased, replaced by the chaotic, joyful clutter of a life well-lived. | stood on the veranda, a cool glass of lemonade in my hand, and watched them. Anderson was on the sprawling lawn, teaching our one-year-old son, Leo, how to walk. Leo, with his father's steady eyes and my stubborn determination, took a wobbly step, then another, before collapsing into Anderson's waiting arms in a fit of giggles. The sound of their laughter was the most beautiful music | had ever heard. The past was not forgotten, but it had lost its power. It was a story | had survived, a scar that had faded to a thin, silver line. Julian Wells was a footnote in a closed case file. Karma was serving a life sentence, a ghost in a prison system who had long since faded from the headlines. And Kyle... | had heard, through the quiet channels Marcus Thorne still maintained, that he had sold his small construction company a year ago. He had used the money to ---- create a non-profit that built homes for displaced families. He had found his own form of penance, his own quiet path to redemption. | felt no anger toward him. No pity. | simply felt... nothing. He was a character in a book | had read a long, long time ago. My phone buzzed. It was a text from Clara, with the final quarter's earnings report. We had shattered every record. Again. | glanced at the numbers, a flicker of the old, familiar thrill running through me. | was still the queen of my empire. But it was no longer the only thing in my life. It wasn't even the most important. | put the phone down and walked out onto the lawn. Anderson looked up as | approached, his face breaking into that slow, easy smile that was the sun in my universe. He held out his free hand to me. "Look who's conquering the world," he said, nodding at our son. | knelt in the soft grass, pulling Leo into my lap. He smelled of milk and sunshine. | kissed the top of his head, my heart so full | thought it might burst. "He gets it from his mother," | said, smiling at my husband. Anderson's eyes met mine over our son's head. In their depths, | saw not the brilliant CEO or the fierce protector, but the man who had patiently waited for me to find my way out of the darkness. The man who had shown me that true power wasn't about control, or vengeance, or winning. ---- It was about building something that would last. He leaned in and kissed me, a soft, lingering kiss that tasted of sunshine and forever. In that moment, surrounded by the quiet peace of the home we had built and the family we had created, | was no longer the wronged wife or the avenging queen. | was just Aimee. And | was finally, completely, irrevocably free.