Chapter Thirty
* The Ride Home*
The inside of the luxury car was a tomb on wheels. The silence was so thick it felt hard to breathe. The driver kept his eyes rigidly ahead, wishing he were anywhere else.
Leonor Louis stared out his window, watching the glittering city blur past. His face, usually gentle and passive, was etched with deep lines of shame and anger.
Naomi sat bolt upright beside him, her fists clenched in her lap, her jaw so tight it ached. The humiliated fury she had swallowed in front of the Laxes was bubbling into a poisonous boil.
Finally, she could not contain it. “The arrogance,” she spat, the word slicing through the quiet. “Did you see how they looked at us? Like we were dirt on their shoe. In our own daughter’s home!”
Leonor did not turn from the window. “It is
