Genesis stood just inside the visitation room, blocking the only exit. She hadn’t taken a seat. She didn’t need to. The scratched metal table between them felt like a flimsy prop.

Monica’s eyes darted from Genesis’s face to her stomach, then back up. Fear lived openly in them now—raw, unguarded. The woman who once ruled her world with silk gloves and sharp words looked small, old, breakable.

Genesis searched that face, the new wrinkles carved deep around the mouth and eyes, the streaks of gray-white threading through hair that used to be glossy black, the exhaustion that had hollowed out the once-imperious cheekbones. She waited for the hatred to rise,...