I did not scream when my husband tied my wrists to the iron wine rack beneath our Newport mansion and raised the riding crop for the thirtieth time.

A year after the trial.

I sat in the bright, spacious sunroom of my family’s Greenwich estate, watching six-year-old Maisie running through the green garden with two golden retriever puppies Alexander had bought her for her birthday.

She was healthy, vibrant, and completely happy. The small scar on her forehead had faded into a tiny, almost invisible silver line, hidden beneath her thick blonde bangs. She attended a top private academy in Manhattan, loved horseback riding, and spent her weekends learning to sail with her uncles on the Long Island Sound.

My personal assistant, Clara, walked into the sunroom carrying a tray of morning tea and a single piece of official mail.

“This arrived in the morning dispatch from the state department of corrections, Mrs. Whitaker,” Clara said gently, placing a stamped envelope on the table.

It was a letter from the maximum-security correctional facility in upstate Rhode Island.

Sender: Inmate #849201 - Grant Hawthorne.

I picked up a silver letter opener, broke the seal, and pulled out the single sheet of lined notebook paper.

The handwriting was shaky, unpolished, and barely recognizable:

Evelyn,

I am writing this from my cell. I know you will probably burn this letter, and I don't blame you. I don't expect a reply.

I spend twenty-two hours a day in a concrete room. Every night when the lights go out, all I hear is the sound of that leather crop hitting the floor, and all I see is the blood on our daughter’s birthday dress. I had everything a man could ever dream of—a brilliant, loving wife, a beautiful daughter, wealth, and respect. And I threw it all into a trash heap because my fragile, arrogant ego couldn't handle the truth.

I saw your picture on the cover of Forbes magazine in the prison library last week. You look radiant, powerful, and magnificent. You look like the woman you were always meant to be before I tried to shrink you into my small world.

I am serving my time. I will never write to you again, and I will never attempt to contact Maisie. I just wanted to say... I am sorry. For every lash. For every lie. For every tear.

Grant.

I read the letter slowly, taking in every word.

There was no sudden wave of grief. There was no lingering flare of anger.

I simply held the paper over the small glass candle burning on the tea tray, watching the flame catch the edge of the notebook paper. The fire consumed the dark ink, the shaky handwriting, and the hollow apologies, reducing the paper to a tiny pile of harmless gray ash in the glass dish.