Chapter 173
Penelope’s POV
56
55 Voucheru
The jail cell smell is disgusting. Penelope sat on the thin mattress with her back against the concrete wall, staring at the blank piece of paper on her lap.
They’d given her writing materials after her lawyer had requested them. Said she had the right to communicate with people outside, that correspondence was part of her basic privileges as someone awaiting
trial.
Penelope had been thinking about this letter for days. Composing it in her head during the endless hours between meals and headcounts, refining the words until they felt true even if they wouldn’t bring comfort.
She picked up the pen and started writing.
Marcus,
I know you hate me. You have every right to. I killed your mother and then married your father and spent fifteen years trying to destroy everything you built. Those are facts I can’t change no matter how much I might want to.
But I need you to understand how it started. Not to excuse what I did, but because the truth matters even when it’s ugly.
I met your father before your mother died. Six months before, actually. At a charity gala where he was the keynote speaker and I was working as an event coordinator. We talked for hours that night about business and art and everything in between. He was brilliant and charming and married, which should have been the end of it.
But it wasn’t.
Penelope paused, remembering that night. Richard in his tuxedo, her in a borrowed dress that was too fancy for someone making thirty thousand a year. The way he’d looked at her like she was interesting instead of just pretty.
We started an affair three weeks later. I knew it was wrong but I couldn’t help myself. Your father was everything I’d ever wanted in a partner. Intelligent, successful, kind in ways that made me believe we could have a real future together.
He said he was going to leave Catherine. Said the marriage had been stale for years, that they stayed together for you but both knew it was over. I believed him because I wanted to believe him.
Then your mother found out.
Penelope’s hand tightened on the pen, the memory still sharp after all these years.
I don’t know how she discovered the affair. Maybe she saw text messages or noticed the way Richard talked about work events I’d coordinated. But she confronted me at my apartment one night, walked right in when I opened the door and stood in my living room looking at me like I was something she’d scraped off her shoe.
17:05 Mon, May 11 M
Chapter 173
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She didn’t yell. That’s what I remember most clearly. Catherine Thorne stood there perfectly composed and told me exactly what was going to happen. She was going to expose the affair to everyone who mattered. She’d make sure I lost my job, my reputation, any chance of working in Manhattan again. She’d destroy me so completely that Richard would never look at me without seeing the wreckage I’d caused.
And then she said the part that broke me. She told me she loved your father too much to share him, that some women were meant to be wives and others were meant to be discarded, and she knew which one I was.
Penelope felt tears burning her eyes but she blinked them back. Crying now wouldn’t change anything.
I left that meeting terrified and furious in equal measure. Your mother held all the power and she knew it. She could ruin me with a few phone calls and there was nothing I could do to stop her.
I started drinking that night. Went through half a bottle of wine trying to figure out what to do, how to salvage anything from the disaster my life had become. I knew I should stay home and sleep it off but I couldn’t stand being in that apartment anymore.
So I got in my car.
The next part you already know. Catherine crossing Park Avenue, me driving too fast and not paying enough attention. The impact that I felt more than heard. The moment of decision when I could have stopped to help or kept driving.
I kept driving.
What you don’t know is that it wasn’t entirely an accident. I saw her step into the crosswalk. Recognized her silhouette even in the dark. And for just a second, maybe half a second, I thought about what would happen if she wasn’t there anymore.
I didn’t speed up. I didn’t aim for her. But I didn’t brake as fast as I could have either. And when she went down, when I saw her body crumpled on the pavement in my rearview mirror, part of me felt relief.
She couldn’t ruin me anymore. She couldn’t take Richard away. The threat was gone.
I know that makes me a monster. I know there’s no redemption from that kind of thinking. But I’m tired of lying and I’m tired of pretending I’m someone I’m not.
Penelope set down the pen and flexed her cramping fingers. The hard part was coming and she needed to get the words exactly right.
The hit and run wasn’t planned. But I never regretted it. Even later when I married your father and built a life with him, I never wished I’d made a different choice that night.
Your mother was in my way. She threatened everything I wanted. And when the opportunity came to remove that threat, I took it.
I spent fifteen years building a life on that choice. Married your father, became Mrs. Thorne, positioned myself to eventually take control of the company I thought I deserved. Every scheme, every manipulation, every plan was about securing what I’d bought with your, mother’s life.
And now it’s all gone. The company, the money, the status, the freedom. All of it disappeared the moment that traffic camera footage came to light.
17:05 Mon, May 11 M…
Chapter 173
55 voucher
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I’m going to prison. My lawyers say if I take a plea deal I might get fifteen years instead of life, but either way I’ll die behind bars. I’m fifty-three years old and I’ll never see the outside world as a free woman again.
Part of me thinks that’s justice. Your mother was forty-two when she died. I stole decades from her, from your father, from you. Spending my remaining years in a cell seems appropriate somehow.
But I need you to understand something before I accept whatever sentence they give me. Your mother didn’t die because I was evil or because I planned to kill her. She died because she loved your father too much to share him.
If Catherine had walked away, if she’d let Richard leave her for someone younger and prettier and more ambitious, she’d still be alive. She’d have watched you grow up, met your wife, held her grandchildren. But she couldn’t let go. Couldn’t accept that sometimes marriages end and people move on.
Her death was her own fault as much as it was mine.
Penelope read over what she’d written and felt nothing. No guilt, no shame, no regret. Just emptiness where those emotions should have been.
She signed the letter, folded it carefully, and slid it into the envelope the guard had provided. Tomorrow her lawyer would mail it and Marcus would read her final explanation for why his mother had died.
He wouldn’t forgive her. She didn’t expect forgiveness.
But at least he’d know the truth. That Catherine Thorne had died because she loved her husband too much to share him, and Penelope Morrison had wanted him too badly to walk away.
And in the end, Penelope had won. She’d gotten Richard, gotten the marriage, gotten years of comfort and status and power.
The fact that it had all come crashing down didn’t change those fifteen years. Didn’t erase the victory she’d claimed over a woman who’d thought she was untouchable.
Penelope lay back on her thin mattress and closed her eyes.
In her dreams, she was still Mrs. Thorne, still powerful and untouchable.
In her dreams, the traffic camera footage had never been found.
