His Ruin Her Crown
"Medical records, old associates, anyone who might remember more than Charles has been willing to share so far. Whatever the truth actually is, Elena, you deserve to finally know it completely, regardless of how many more uncomfortable revelations it requires uncovering."
Elena leaned into him, exhaustion and grief and a fierce, renewed determination all tangling together as she stared down at her mother's final, defiant letter, understanding, with sudden clarity, that the crown she'd spent two months fighting to reclaim had roots considerably deeper and more complicated than she'd ever allowed herself to imagine.
Her mother had fought this same battle once, decades earlier, and paid for tha