With a calm, incredibly steady hand, Lena walked back inside her warm, deeply heated penthouse. She didn’t tear the envelope open. She didn’t throw it in the trash.
She walked over to a sleek, heavy-duty, stainless-steel paper shredder sitting near her home office desk. She dropped the unopened letter into the top slot.
The machine hummed to life, the high-pitched, whining sound of the steel teeth violently destroying his desperate words filling the quiet room. She listened to his final attempt at manipulation being turned into illegible, worthless confetti, permanently erasing his voice from her universe.
Lena turned her back on the machine and walked into the living room.
Her son, now a healthy, vibrant, and energetic toddler, was sitting on the plush rug, playing with a set of wooden blocks. He was wrapped in a soft, incredibly expensive cashmere blanket, laughing as the fire crackled warmly in the stone fireplace.
Lena scooped him up into her arms, kissing his warm, rosy cheek as he giggled wildly.
She looked out the massive windows at the heavy, blinding snow falling across the city.
Adrian and his family had thought her faded gray coat meant she was weak. They had assumed that because she was quiet, she was stupid. They believed that by throwing her into the freezing cold of poverty, she would simply lie down and die, allowing them to steal her warmth.
They didn’t realize a fundamental truth of the universe.
A woman forged in the brutal, terrifying fires of survival doesn’t just learn how to endure the cold. She doesn’t just build a thicker coat.
She eventually learns exactly how to buy the entire winter, and freeze her enemies out forever.
