---- Chapter 10 Charlotte Dean POV: Time seemed to warp and slow. The sounds of the city-the traffic, the distant sirens, the chatter of the departing guests -faded into a dull roar. My entire focus was on the broken man at the bottom of the steps. The man who had once been the center of my universe. Gabe stared up at me, his eyes wide with a dawning horror and a profound, soul-deep shame. He looked from me, radiant in my designer gown, to Ethan, my handsome, protective husband standing beside me, and then to the small, crying boy clinging to his rags. This was his rock bottom. And | was the unwilling witness to it "Charlotte," he rasped, his voice a dry, unused thing. My five-year-old daughter, Lily, who had been waiting with her grandmother just inside the doors, chose that moment to run out. "Mommy!" she called, her voice a cheerful bell in the tense silence. She ran to me and wrapped her arms around my legs. | instinctively bent down and scooped her into my arms, ---- holding her tight, turning her away from the ugly scene unfolding below. | buried my face in her soft, clean hair, breathing in her sweet, innocent scent. A shield against the filth of the past. Gabe' s gaze fell on Lily, and a fresh wave of agony washed over his face. He saw the life he had thrown away. The family he could have had. The daughter who could have been his. Harper, seeing her last hope for a reunion crumbling, let out a wretched sob. "Gabe, do something! Don' t just stand there! She destroyed us!" Gabe didn't seem to hear her. He took a staggering step forward, his eyes fixed on me. "Is she...?" He couldn' t finish the question. "She is my daughter," Ethan said, his voice firm and cold, answering the question Gabe didn't have the right to ask. He placed a steadying hand on my back. "Charlotte is my wife." The finality in Ethan' s words seemed to break Gabe. He sagged, all the fight going out of him. He looked like a puppet with its strings cut. Harper began to wail, a high, thin sound of pure despair. "No ... No, this wasn' t how it was supposed to happen. We were supposed to be together. We were supposed to have everything." Gabe finally turned his hollow eyes to her. "There is no 'we,' Harper," he said, his voice utterly dead. "There hasn' t been ---- for a long time. You see that, don' t you? She won." He gestured vaguely in my direction. "She has everything. Everything we took from her. And we... we have exactly what we deserve." He looked back at me, one last, lingering look of unbearable regret. "What happened to our son, Charlotte? Alexander. Is he okay?" His question, so full of a pain he had earned, was the first thing that had managed to pierce my armor of indifference. He was asking about the child he had discarded. "He is happy and healthy," | said, my voice cool and distant, betraying none of the turmoil inside me. "He is a Dean. He has a wonderful father who adores him." | saw the words land, each one a separate blow. | turned to leave, holding Lily close. | had seen enough. This was not my life anymore. This was their squalor, their tragedy. Ethan put his arm around me, guiding me and our daughter away from the wreckage. "There's a shelter | designed downtown," | heard myself say to no one in particular, my voice sounding foreign and clinical. "They provide meals, counseling, and job placement services. Perhaps you should look into it." As we walked away, | heard Harper' s renewed screams and the sound of something shattering. | glanced back one last ---- time. Gabe was on his knees on the pavement. He had picked up a discarded bottle and smashed it against the stone steps. Harper was trying to pull him up, but he was unresponsive, rocking back and forth, his face buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking with silent, wracking sobs. Their son, Leo, stood a few feet away, watching his parents disintegrate, his small face a mask of terror. He was clutching the hand of an even smaller boy, who couldn't have been more than three, trying to shield him from the scene. My heart ached, not for Gabe or Harper, but for those children. For the innocent boys trapped in a cycle of poverty and despair created by their parents' greed and cruelty. @ "Mommy, why is that man crying?" Lily asked, her small voice full of concern. | hugged her tighter, shielding her from the view. "Because he made some bad choices a long time ago, sweetheart," | whispered, kissing the top of her head. "And he lost something very, very precious." We got into our waiting car. As it pulled away from the curb, | looked out the back window. The scene was already dissolving, the city' s relentless energy swallowing them up. They were just another tragic story on a New York street corner, invisible to the world. | settled back against the plush leather seat, next to my ---- husband, with my beautiful daughter safe in my arms. | was heading home. To my real family. To my real life. The ghosts of the past were finally laid to rest. Not by my revenge, but by their own self-destruction. And as the car sped into the night, leaving the ruins of Gabe Sullivan and Harper Nicholson far behind, | didn't feel triumph. | didn't feel pity. | felt nothing at all. And that was the most perfect victory of all.