Seeing that her son was failing to handle me, Ursula tried to play the victim by clutching her chest. “I am an elderly woman and I don’t deserve to be treated with such disrespect when I only acted out of necessity.”
I looked her straight in the eye and didn’t blink. “You didn’t act out of necessity, you acted out of a habit of never being told no.”
I made a quick call and told my team they could come up now without needing to explain any further details. My lawyer, Audrey Vance, entered the apartment a few minutes later with two police officers following closely behind her.
Audrey placed her briefcase on the table and began reading through a summary of the charges which included fraud, coercion, and physical assault. Dominick stood there frozen in place while Ursula started babbling about how I was trying to destroy a good family.
Their words didn’t have any power over me anymore because they sounded like empty scripts from a bad movie. While the officers started questioning them, I went into the bedroom to grab my purse and my car keys.
I didn’t need to pack much because I had already recovered my dignity and my sense of self. As I walked toward the door, Dominick called out my name in a broken voice that made me feel nothing but a sense of distance.
I paused at the threshold one last time to look him in the eyes. “You aren’t pale because of what I said, you’re pale because you realize I’m not your victim anymore.”
Then I walked out and didn’t look back.
