My name is Sadie Davis. For most of my life, my younger sister, Melanie, got whatever she wanted.

The reception spilled out onto the stone terrace as twilight painted the sky in shades of violet and gold.

String lights twinkled overhead like a canopy of real stars. Laughter echoed across the lawn, glasses clinked in toasts to our future, and the heavy burden of the past dissolved entirely into the cool autumn breeze.

I stood near the edge of the stone balustrade, looking out over the winding river where the water caught the dying light of day.

Wyatt walked up behind me, wrapping his arms securely around my waist and resting his chin on my shoulder, just as he had done so many times before.

"Penny for your thoughts, Mrs. Campbell," he whispered softly against my ear.

I leaned back into his embrace, turning my head to press a gentle kiss to his cheek.

"I was just thinking about that day on the porch," I murmured, watching the ripples on the water. "When my father dropped the brick, and my mother laughed."

Wyatt’s arms tightened protectively around me. "Does it still hurt?"

I looked down at the sparkling diamond ring on my left hand, and then down at the heavy gold signet ring on my right index finger—the official seal of Sterling-Vance Global Holdings, passed down from my grandfather through generations of survivors.

"No," I smiled, turning around in his arms to look directly into his eyes. "It doesn't hurt at all. Because they tried to break me into pieces so small I'd never recover... but they forgot what happens when you forge steel in the fire."