Page 82 of Coast

But then he opened his mouth and made it even worse.

“You know, you should have gotten rid of it,” he said, gaze flicking over our daughter. “You could still be living here, making your little dance videos, enjoying living in the lap of luxury.”

“It,” I repeated, voice venomous, “is a she. And she is the only good thing your selfish, arrogant, evil, ugly ass ever gave to me. Keep your money. I don’t need anything from you.”

I did.

I desperately did.

But I’d be damned if I took it.

If tonight was the night of swallowing my pride for the sake of my daughter, I knew somewhere else I could take her.

Somewhere that she would be cared for and appreciated.

Somewhere that wouldn’t make me feel like dirt on the bottom of a shoe.

“Don’t ever come back here,” Travis called as I reached to open the front door.

He always liked to have the last word.

But just this once, it was mine.

“If I ever come back here again, I’m taking all of this from you,” I said, watching his face fall, knowing it was possible.

I didn’t mean it.

I never wanted to see him again.

But I wanted those words to roll around in his head every night before he fell asleep. I wanted them to haunt his dreams. I wanted him to forever be looking over his shoulder in fear that I would make good on that threat.

Because we both knew it wasn’t just his daughter’s care and keeping and schooling I could make him pay for.

It was every shady, underhanded deal I knew about. Every time he lied to a collaborator. Every dirty little secret he kept. Every carefully stacked lie he built his little empire on.

I could expose it all.

I could burn it all down.

And the only thing keeping me from doing it was the fear of him leveraging custody or visitation with Lainey against me.

But still.

I wanted him to sweat.

I wanted him to know what it was like to be under someone else’s thumb.

I wanted him to be afraid each time he thought of me and what he put me through.

And I never, ever wanted to see him again.

“Well, that was the closure I didn’t know I needed,” I told Lainey as I strapped her back into her seat.

I climbed over from the passenger side seat into the driver’s, worried that if I slammed the driver’s side door too many times, that spiderwebbing on the glass might fully shatter.

Then I reversed away from my old life for the last time.

And drove all the way back to Golden Glades.

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