“So I found the one thing you couldn’t ignore.”
The realization settled over me, not with the shock of an explosion, but with the cold, heavy dread of a structural collapse.
“The Harringtons,” I said.
Chloe gave a slow, deliberate nod.A chilling smile touched her lips.
“Garrett wasn’t a mistake,” she said.“I met him at that charity gala in Georgetown because I spent three months studying his movement patterns.
I knew he was an arrogant, violent narcissist with an inferiority complex the size of the Atlantic.
I knew his mother, Evelyn, was a monster who used her family’s political foundations to launder dirty money for defense contractors.
They were the perfect hammer.”
“You married an abuser on purpose.”
“I married a catalyst,” she corrected.“I spent three years letting them insult me, belittle me, push me down their marble staircases, because I knew that as long as it was quiet, you would stay in your greenhouse.
