The words left her lips before she could stop them, a whispered apology to ghosts who couldn't hear.
"Sorry. Sorry that I'm leaving."
Victoria Helson stood at the edge of her family's villa, the first hints of dawn painting the sky in shades of bruised purple and pale gold. Her eyes remained closed, as if sealing the image of home behind her lids might make the leaving easier. It didn't.
I will never come back. And I can never marry, not after what happened.
The quarrel had been vicious. Her parents couldn't understand why their daughter would refuse such a "perfect" match. A wealthy businessman. Respectable family. Everything a girl could want. They never asked what she wanted. They never understood that the very thought of marrying a man made her skin crawl, made something deep inside her recoil.
She hadn't known how to explain it then. She barely understood it herself.
So she left.
No looking back. Just the crush of gravel beneath her feet and a single folded letter left in her room. Four pages that would haunt her family for years, a blade dressed as goodbye, cutting strings none of them knew were already frayed.
Five Years Later
The courtroom hummed with tension.
Victoria adjusted her golden contact lenses, hiding the greyish-blue eyes that might give her away, and sat perfectly still at the plaintiff's table. Blonde hair cut sharply at the neck. Hands folded in her lap.
Across the aisle, the defence table sat crowded with expensive suits and colder eyes. Thomas Harrington watched her with the lazy confidence of a man who'd never truly faced consequences. His lawyer, Mitchell Crane, whispered something in his ear.
Victoria didn't acknowledge them. She watched Sera.
The girl was barely eighteen. She walked to the witness stand like someone approaching her own execution, head down, shoulders curved, trying to take up as little space as possible. The same way she'd probably made herself small when Harrington cornered her after that charity gala.
Before stepping up, Sera glanced back.
Victoria gave the smallest nod. Barely perceptible. But Sera saw it. Straightened and continued forward.
Victoria's direct examination lasted an hour. She guided Sera through every detail, the gala, the drugged champagne, waking in a stranger's hotel room, the threats that followed: "My family owns this city. My family owns the police. My family owns judges. Who's going to believe a nobody like you?"
Sera's voice cracked but never broke.
When Crane rose for cross-examination, Victoria settled into her chair and watched. She'd prepped the girl well. Nothing Crane threw at her stuck - not the slut-shaming, not the victim-blaming, not the insinuations about her character.
Through it all, Sera held on.
And Victoria never once reached for her hand. Never smiled. Never offered false comfort. Just sat there, still and watchful, a silent promise that someone in this room believed her.
The trial lasted three days.
Victoria called her witnesses: a former employee who'd seen Harrington harass women before, a nurse who'd treated another victim years ago but been warned to stay silent, a forensic expert whose testimony broke the timeline wide open. She paid for the expert herself because the Morrisons had nothing left to give.
Crane fought every step of the way. Objections. Motions. Attempts to have testimony struck from the record. Victoria met each one with cold precision, her objections sharp and timely, her arguments clear and damning.
Through it all, a woman sat in the back row of the gallery. Tired eyes. She watched the proceedings with an expression Victoria couldn't read and didn't care to.
On the final day, Victoria delivered her closing argument. No notes. Just words.
"Thomas Harrington raped Sera Morrison. He drugged her. He threatened her. He told her his family owned this city, owned the police, owned the judges. And you know what? He was almost right."
She paused.
"Almost. Because he didn't count on Sera's courage. He didn't count on a jury that would listen. He didn't count on justice finding a way even when the system tries to bury it."
She looked at the jury.
"Sera came here to be believed. Don't let her leave without that."
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The judge's gavel fell.
Victoria sat motionless as the verdict was read. Guilty on all counts. Twelve years.
The gallery erupted. Sera's mother sobbed. Reporters scrambled.
Victoria watched Sera, watched the girl's face crumple, then reform, tears spilling down cheeks held rigid for months.
Sera turned to her. Victoria inclined her head. That was all.
And then Sera was moving, closing the distance, wrapping thin arms around Victoria's neck and sobbing into her shoulder.
Victoria went very still.
For a moment, she didn't react at all. But then, carefully, she lifted one hand and rested it lightly on Sera's back. Not embracing. Just... Comforting.
"There now." Her voice was softer than anyone in that courtroom had ever heard it. "Don't cry. It's not worth it."
Later, Sera's parents tried to pay her. Victoria refused.
The mother wept. The father stepped forward with shame in his eyes. "I didn't protect her. I should have-"
Victoria cut him off with a look. "You didn't. But you're here now."
She left before he could respond.
As she walked past the gallery, her eyes briefly met those of the woman sitting alone in the back row. Middle-aged. Tired eyes. Just watching.
Victoria looked away and kept walking.
That night, alone in her office, Victoria removed her contact lenses and stared at her reflection. Greyish-blue eyes, her mother's eyes, stared back.
She touched the empty locket at her throat.
The letter echoed in her memory. Every word she'd written five years ago, still etched into her bones:
"Sorry Mom And Dad. Sorry, Mike. I Am Leaving And Never Coming Back. Sorry For My Selfish Decision... For Not Being the Person You Wanted Me To Be. I Don't Deserve To Be Your Daughter... Don't Try To Find Me. I Am Not Doing This Because Of The Engagement. It Is Because There Is Something Wrong With Me. And Mom, I Really Love You, and I Am Indebted To You And Dad. Please Forget Your Unfilial Daughter. You Deserved A Better One...
Farewell, Mom, Dad, and Mike...
-Victoria."
She still didn't know what it was. The hatred for men that lived in her chest like a second heart. The certainty that she could never marry, never be normal, never give her parents the daughter they'd wanted.
It doesn't matter, she told herself.
But as she left that night, walking past the courthouse where she'd won today's battle, she felt the familiar ache of loneliness.
Somewhere across the city, Sera was crying in her mother's arms.
Victoria had no one.
And she'd made peace with that. After all, she chose to walk this path.