Page 105 of What Remains of Grace

Emmie stopped pacing so fast it looked like she hit an invisible wall.

“He has the life insurance money? Her life insurance money?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“Enough,” Jenna said, throat tight. “Probably not enough to buy us out, but enough to hire lawyers, make us sell. Enough to . . . make things complicated.”

Emmie stared at the floor. Then at the windows. Then at the walls. Then at the table. Her whole body trembled, not with fear.

With rage.

“I watched him ruin her,” she said. Her voice was low. Dangerous. “Piece by piece. Do you know that? Do you know I watched it happen? I watched her come home from the bakery and cry in this kitchen. I heard them arguing through that bedroom wall. I saw her paying bills he was supposed to handle, and she kept lying to me about why she was so tired. I saw her change.”

Jenna’s eyes burned.

“I saw her spark go out,” Emmie said, hands fisting at her sides. “And I saw him take joy in it. He was proud of how small he made her. Proud of how dependent she became. Proud when she doubted herself. He chipped at her until she didn’t even look like my mom anymore.”

“Em—”

“And after all that,” Emmie cut in, voice rising, “after he walked away, after he left her to rot in this house with a broken heart and a failing body, after he came back only to pick through our cars like a vulture picking bones . . . after all that, he gets money for being a terrible husband AND the right to take the only things she had left?”

Her voice snapped like a whip. “No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”

Jenna let her talk. Emmie had earned this rage. She’d held too much in for too long.

“He already took her,” Emmie said. “He took her confidence. He took her peace. He took her joy. He took years of her life. And now he’s coming for her bakery? Her home? Her legacy? Over my dead body.”

“We’re going to fight this,” Jenna said firmly. “Hard. But we have to be strategic.”

“I don’t want strategic,” Emmie spat out. “I want scorched earth.”

“I get that,” Jenna said. “But scorched earth doesn’t always win court cases.”

“I don’t care about court cases!” Emmie exploded. “I care about keeping the last pieces of my mother out of that man’s hands!”

She braced her palms on the table and leaned in, eyes burning.

“You don’t know what it was like,” she said. “To watch him wear her down piece by piece. To see her fight so hard to stay herself while he kept pushing and pushing. I was the one who sat with her when she was exhausted.”

Emmie’s jaw tightened.

“I was the one who picked up the pieces he scattered. I was the one who heard her apologize for things that were never her fault.”

Her voice cracked on the last word. “She was so strong, but everyone has a breaking point, and I watched him break her heart so badly it just . . . stopped.”

Tears filled her eyes, but didn’t fall.

“I watched her die for years,” she growled. “And now he gets to profit from it.”

Jenna stood and slowly walked around the table. When she reached Emmie, she placed a hand gently on the small of her back.

Emmie stiffened, but didn’t move away.

“We’re not letting him take anything,” Jenna murmured. “Not without a fight. Not without exhausting every single legal option.”

Emmie swallowed hard. “Like what?”