Three days after my twin sons were born, my husband brought twenty-two members of his family into a hospital room and offered me two hundred thousand dollars to sign away my marriage, my children, and my right to ever ask about their company's accounts. They expected me to cry. I read every page and signed all of them.

I met Caspian at a work thing in 2020. We married in 2021. I kept my job and I kept my name and both of those were, at the time, treated as slightly eccentric.

In the January of last year, in a Tuesday management meeting, I asked a question.

Not an accusation. A question, out loud, in front of six people, about why the trust account reconciliation had been signed off by Adelaide in December when it had historically been signed by me, and why the closing balance was about four hundred thousand dollars lower than the deposit liability I was carrying.

Adelaide said there had been a timing difference on a transfer and that she would get me the detail.

Three weeks later I was moved.

Not demoted. Moved, in the warmest possible way, to a newly created role on the marketing and leasing side, because — Adelaide said, in her office, with tea — I was wasted in the back office and had a way with people.