Chapter 6 - Five Years Later
Five years after the gas station, I opened the first Safe Mile Center outside Kansas City.
The center provided emergency transportation, temporary lodging, and legal referrals for people stranded by controlling partners or relatives. Marlene managed the volunteer drivers. Rachel served on the board.
Daniel and I had married quietly the year before.
I did not build the center to punish Kyle.
I built it because one kind stranger had stopped at a fuel pump and asked what I needed instead of why I had stayed.
Kyle found me during the opening reception.
I recognized him across the lobby before he spoke.
He looked older and thinner, but he still wore the same gray cap. His smile appeared automatically, as though five years had been an intermission before he could charm me again.
“Lena.”
I stepped away from the guests.
“How did you find me?”
“Your picture was in the local news.”
He glanced around the building.
“You did well.”
I heard the resentment beneath the compliment.
“What do you want, Kyle?”
He claimed a streaming company wanted to purchase the old channel archive. Because I still controlled the original company, he needed my signature.
“The money could help both of us,” he said.
“It would help you.”
“We were good once.”
“No. I was useful once.”
His smile tightened.
Then footsteps stopped behind me.
Daniel placed one hand gently against my back.
Kyle looked over my shoulder.
The smile vanished from his face.
He recognized Daniel immediately—the attorney who had uncovered the hidden company, recovered the stolen income, and blocked every attempt to sell my image.
Daniel held a sealed folder.
Kyle stared at it.
“What is that?”
I answered before Daniel could.
“Notice that the archive will be donated as evidence for a documentary about digital abuse.”
Kyle’s face drained.
May you like
“You can’t do that.”
“I own it.”
