Chapter 5 - Purified by FireAn hour later, the police sedans, federal vans, and tactical transports had vanished into the night, carrying Nathan and Celeste toward separate federal holding facilities with no possibility of bail.
Only my father, a team of private contractors, and I remained in the vast, empty manor.
Systematically, my father’s contractors stripped the house of everything that had belonged to Nathan—his designer wardrobe, his art collection, his vanity trophies, and his personal records. Everything was thrown into the back of an industrial incinerator truck parked in the driveway.
I walked over to the grand fireplace in the central hall, holding a heavy silver pen and a stack of legal documents prepared by my father’s corporate attorneys.
"Are you certain you want to do this?" my father asked, standing beside me with his hands resting on his cane. "This property is worth over thirty million dollars."
"Nathan tainted every inch of this ground," I answered, staring at the soot in the cold hearth. "He thought this manor was his kingdom. He thought these walls were proof of his domination over me. I don't want his ghost in my life, and I don't need the money."
I signed the final page of the document with a steady hand.
Instead of keeping the estate or selling it for profit, I transferred the title of Blackthorn Manor directly to a private charitable foundation. By tomorrow morning, demolition crews would arrive to level the entire structure to the ground. In its place, a state-of-the-art rehabilitation center and safe haven for victims of domestic abuse would be constructed, fully funded in perpetuity by the seized assets of Ashford Global.
I closed the folder and handed it back to the lawyer.
May you like
"Let's go home, Dad," I said softly.
My father smiled—a warm, genuine smile that reached his eyes—and took my arm. We walked out of the ruined front entrance, leaving the empty mansion behind as the first light of dawn began to break over the horizon.
