Phedra held tightly to my shirt, waiting for me to explode.
I didn’t.
Instead, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone.
PART 2
Seventeen missed calls from a Canadian number were glowing on my screen.
There was also an email that had arrived while I was on the flight home.
I opened it slowly.
“You’re right,” I told Selina. “Coming in here yelling won’t fix anything.”
Her shoulders loosened. Godfrey stopped looking quite so nervous.
“We can talk like a family,” I continued. “Actually, I have some news I was planning to give you tomorrow.”
Selina’s attention shifted instantly from Phedra to the phone in my hand.
The email confirmed what those seventeen calls had been about: I had just received a million-dollar settlement following a major industrial safety violation at the Calgary plant that had injured my shoulder two years ago.
I watched the information register on their faces before I added anything else.
I hadn’t come home planning revenge. Until I walked into that backyard, I had still believed the money I’d sent had kept my wife safe.
Now I knew exactly what greed had already cost her.
So I gave my family one detail about the settlement—and deliberately left out the part that mattered most…
