Every piece I’d gathered on instinct now had an explanation.
None of the explanations made me want to forgive a single one of them.
PART 8
The choice wasn’t hard to understand. It was hard to make, and I refused to let it be easy.
Vanessa faced felony charges — reckless endangerment of a child, evidence tampering. That was never negotiable, not for one second, not for anyone’s comfort. My daughter had nearly died on our living room floor while her aunt watched and smiled. I wasn’t trading that for anyone’s convenience.
The financial fraud was where my lawyer and the county prosecutor tried to build me an off-ramp. A quiet civil settlement. A negotiated repayment. Keep the worst of it out of the papers, they said, and Whitaker Foodservice Supply might survive — four hundred and twelve jobs, warehouse workers and drivers who’d never touched a shell company in their lives.
