Chapter 12 - Diane Left the House With Nothing But Her Own Clothes
By the end of the week, Nora had everything in motion.
Protective notices.
Evidence preservation.
A formal demand for Diane to cease all contact pending further legal action.
And Dominic had made his own decision long before any judge or investigator would weigh in.
Diane was leaving.
He did not throw her onto the lawn.
He did not shout.
He did not humiliate her the way she had humiliated Lily.
He simply stood in the entryway beside the same black suitcase—now empty of the children’s things and repacked with Diane’s own clothes—and told her the house was no longer hers.
“You can stay with Aunt Teresa,” he said.
Diane looked at him as if he were a stranger.
“You are choosing those children over your mother.”
Dominic did not blink.
“Yes.”
She laughed once, bitterly.
“One day you’ll regret letting them rule you.”
Dominic opened the front door.
“No,” he said. “What I regret is not seeing you clearly sooner.”
For a second, it looked like she might say something cutting enough to try to scar him with it.
Instead, she reached for the suitcase handle.
Then her gaze drifted past him.
Lily stood at the far end of the hallway in her yellow dress, the same one Dominic had washed clean.
Owen stood beside her.
Diane’s expression hardened again.
But neither child moved toward her.
Neither said goodbye.
That, more than anything, seemed to age her.
She rolled the suitcase out without another word.
Dominic closed the door.
Locked it.
And this time, when he turned back into the house, the silence felt different.
Not empty.
May you like
Safe.
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