Chapter 3 - THE WORD "NO"Inside the envelope was a personal letter and a small, heavy brass key.
My father wrote that I was never helpless, never legally dependent on Patricia’s mercy, and never truly alone. He warned me not to believe anyone who claimed he had forgotten me in his final, binding will. At the bottom, he directed us straight to locker 718 inside his old, abandoned commercial restoration building downtown.
Before we could leave the lounge, the heavy door slammed open. Patricia burst into the room.
The second her eyes landed on the cream envelope in my hands, all the color drained from her face. She hissed an order for me to hand it over immediately, her hand shooting out like a claw.
My body almost obeyed out of sheer, conditioned habit.
Instead, I pulled the letter back against my chest, looked my stepmother dead in the eye, and uttered a single word I had never dared to say out of fear in my entire life:
"No."
Patricia flew into a rage, screaming that she would lock me out of the house forever if I walked out that door with Giovanni.
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I held my father’s letter tight against my heart and replied that I wasn't ever coming back to that prison. Giovanni swung the private exit door open, but I walked out first.
For the first time since my father’s coffin was lowered into the ground, Patricia looked genuinely terrified of me.
