Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Shae
Idon’t open the letter right away.
I set it on the kitchen counter—next to my phone, next to the framed photo of Sophie and me as kids. In it, I look happy. Carefree. Loved.
Then I look back at the envelope.
Ordinary. Cream paper. No return address. My name printed, not handwritten. Careful. Controlled.
I sit at the table and slit it open with my finger. No ceremony. No buildup.
The letter is longer than I expected.
That’s the first thing that bothers me.
It starts warm.
Shae,
I hope this reaches you at a moment of peace.
I snort.
Peace isn’t something people like me stumble into by accident.
I keep reading.
I’ve followed your story for years. Longer than you know. I’ve watched the way the world tried to destroy you, and the way you refused to let it. That takes strength. It takes intelligence. It takes blood.
I stop.
Blood.
I scan ahead, just to see where this is going. The writing doesn’t change—no slant, no tremor. Whoever wrote this wasn’t emotional. They were composed.
That’s the second thing that bothers me.
I go back.
I’m your sister.
Your half-sister, technically.
I read the line twice.
Then a third time.
I don’t feel disbelief. Or confusion.
I feel irritation.
No one gets to claim me like this.
Our father, Robert, never told you about me. He tells people a lot of things now—about regret, about accountability, about becoming a better man—but he’s very selective with the truth.
I swallow.
My father’s name sits in my chest like a bruise I pretend isn’t there.
He’s been careful. Quiet. Rebranded—just like the rest of us. He volunteers now. Goes to meetings. Talks about harm and healing like they’re concepts he learned instead of habits he practiced.
The letter keeps going.
I don’t blame him for hiding me. I imagine it was easier. He’s always chosen the path of least resistance. You know that better than anyone.
I set the page down.
I don’t like the way she’s talking to me.
Not accusatory. Not aggressive.
Familiar.
I pick it back up.
He hurt people, Shae.
Not just emotionally.
Not just “in the ways men do.”
Real harm. The kind that leaves records if you know where to look—and silence if you don’t.
My pulse ticks once, sharp.
She doesn’t say what kind of harm.
She doesn’t need to.
He’s making amends now. Playing the role of a man who learned his lesson late in life.
But if justice were honest, he’d be where you were.
And maybe where I still am.
Something clicks into place.
Not fear.
Recognition.
She’s good.
I keep reading.
I could tell the media everything.
They’d love it.
A fallen patriarch.
A legacy of abuse.
The daughter who broke the cycle.
Then a line break. A pause she built on purpose.
But I don’t want to destroy him.
I want to understand us.
Us.
I laugh, but it comes out thin.
I want to know you.
Not the version they edited.
The real one.
Another pause.
I think we’re more alike than different.
I think it runs in the family.
My fingers tighten on the paper.
She isn’t threatening me.
She’s inviting me.
And that’s worse.
I flip the page.
I know what you did to survive.
I know what it costs to be the one who doesn’t break the way everyone expects.
You lost a sister.
I lost a childhood.
Sophie flickers through me—not her face, just the space she used to take up. The way she leaned into me when she was tired. The way she believed things would get better because she needed to.
I force the thought away.
I had sweetness once.
It didn’t save her.
The letter doesn’t say Sophie’s name.
It doesn’t have to.
You and I don’t need to be enemies, Shae.
We don’t need to pretend we’re different kinds of women.
She ends with:
Call me.
Or don’t.
Either way, I’m proud of you.
Family finds each other eventually.
xo Iris
I sit there for a long time.
Too long.
This isn’t how threats usually feel. There’s no adrenaline. No urgency. No obvious move to counter.
This is patient.
I fold the letter carefully. Once. Twice. Thirds. I line the edges up like I’m filing it instead of shaking.
I tell myself I’m not afraid.
But my body doesn’t listen.
My stomach feels hollow. My hands feel unfamiliar—like they belong to someone who just realized the mirror doesn’t stop at the face.
I’ve always known what monsters look like.
They look like my father when he apologized too late.
They look like men who confuse confession with absolution.
I’ve fought those monsters.
This one?
This one sounds like me.
She doesn’t want money. Or silence. Or leverage.
She wants connection.
She wants recognition.
She wants a seat at the table.
I think about Sophie again, and this time I don’t push it away.
I loved her.
I loved her and it didn’t make me better.
I loved her and she still died.
That’s the lie everyone tells themselves—that love redeems. That it softens. That it saves.
I know better.
Love is just proximity with expectations.
I stand and walk to the window.
Somewhere out there is a woman who shares my blood—who sees what I’ve done and doesn’t flinch. Who doesn’t want to expose me.
Not yet.
For the first time, I don’t feel hunted.
I feel seen.
And that terrifies me.
Because enemies come from the outside.
But family?
Family knows where to look.