Chapter 6: The Past
Evelyn spent the weekend in her new Manhattan apartment going through the boxes from August Voss’s archives.
There were letters from her mother refusing contact.
There were reports from private investigators August had hired to watch over her.
There was a single black notebook he had kept near the end.
In it, he had written about the day he learned his granddaughter had married into the Harper family.
She chose poorly. I stayed away because she asked me to. Now her daughter is married to a man who treats her like a servant. I will not stay away from my granddaughter any longer.
Evelyn read until the words blurred.
She had grown up believing she had no powerful relatives, no safety net. August had been watching the whole time. He had seen Grant. He had seen Margaret. He had seen how they diminished her.
And in the final months of his life, he had rewritten his will to give Evelyn the one thing they had always believed she could never have.
Power.
Evelyn closed the notebook and looked out at the city lights.
May you like
The past was not kind.
But it had left her the tools to make the future different.
