Chapter 1: The Red and Blue Lights The heavy oak doors of the ballroom swung open. Two Chicago police officers stepped inside, followed immediately by three paramedics. The flashing red and blue lights from their cruisers bathed the elegant hotel lobby in an eerie, frantic glow.

Chapter 15: Peace

Two years later.

The sun was shining brightly over a small park in the Chicago suburbs. I sat on a wooden bench, sipping a vanilla latte, watching Sophie run across the green grass.

She was ten now. Taller, faster, and infinitely braver. The scar on her forehead had faded to a barely visible white line, hidden perfectly by her bangs.

She was laughing, chasing a golden retriever puppy we had adopted a few months prior.

Life was completely different.

The civil suit had ruined my parents financially. Between the massive settlement awarded to Sophie and the exorbitant legal fees for Preston’s failed defense, they had been forced to sell the family estate. They downsized to a small condo in a different state, too humiliated to show their faces in Chicago ever again.

I hadn't spoken to them since the day of the verdict.

I took the settlement money and bought a beautiful, modest house in a quiet neighborhood. I put the rest into a secure trust for Sophie’s future—a trust that my father couldn't touch or use as leverage.

“Mommy, look!” Sophie yelled, tossing a frisbee. The puppy leaped into the air, catching it clumsily before tumbling into the grass.

I laughed, a genuine, deep sound that I hadn't known I was capable of making.

For the first time in my life, I felt completely safe. The wolves were gone. They were locked away, both physically and emotionally, banished from the peaceful world I had built.