My Stepmother Said The House Was Never Mine Until Court Changed Everything

What He Left Behind
Rain hammered the cemetery road and pooled in the tire tracks left by the hearse. I stood on the wraparound porch of the estate in my soaked black dress, my father’s pocket watch pressed cold and heavy against my wrist. Behind me, the remaining funeral guests whispered beneath their umbrellas, a dark, shifting sea watching the scene on the porch with the barely concealed attention of people who had been waiting for something like this and were now getting exactly what they came for.

In front of me, Victoria held the oak door open with two fingers, her nails lacquered the color of old blood, her posture loose and unbothered. She looked entirely too vital for a widow who had buried her husband four hours earlier. “This house was never truly yours, Abigail,” she said, her voice carrying cleanly over the sound of the rain.