**Chapter 49— Scarlett POV**
Jason's apartment was the kind of place that made you feel like the world outside didn't exist. High ceilings, clean lines, that particular silence that only came with good insulation and enough money to be far from street noise. We were spread across his living room — Jason in the armchair, Julia curled on one end of the couch, me on the other with my legs tucked under me and a cup of coffee going cold in my hands.
It had been three days since the Marc situation. Three days since Nikolai's quiet building and the golf club and the back exit and all of us standing on the pavement at midnight deciding quietly that we were in this until the end.
"Nikolai called this morning," Jason said, turning his coffee cup in his hands. "Marc is stable. Improving, actually — the concussion is resolving. He said the signs are good. He should wake up within the next few days."
I exhaled slowly. "Good."
"Good," Julia echoed, though her voice carried something more complicated than relief. She'd been the one holding his wrist in the backseat, checking his pulse every few minutes like she could will him to stay alive through sheer attention. She hadn't said much about that night since. I hadn't pushed.
A silence settled over the three of us, the comfortable kind, the kind that came from having been through something together and not needing to narrate it.
Then I set down my coffee cup and straightened up.
"We need to talk about Liam."
Jason looked up. Julia didn't move, but something in her shoulders shifted — a slight tension, barely visible.
"He's next," I said simply. "And we're going to use Madeleine to do it."
Julia turned her head slowly to look at me. "Scarlett."
"I know what you're going to say."
"She hit a man with a golf club for us," Julia said, her voice measured, careful, the way she spoke when she was trying not to sound like she was lecturing me. "She could have walked away. She didn't. She protected us."
"And before that," I said, "we protected her. We got her away from Marc. We gave her money, a new phone, a fresh start. We were the ones who helped her first, Julia. That didn't disappear because of one night."
Julia looked at me for a long moment. Then she looked away, at the window, at the city beyond it.
"I'm tired," she said quietly. "I want you to know that. I'm genuinely tired of all of this."
"I know."
"Lana is finished. Her career is gone, her father is barely speaking to her, she's facing legal charges." Julia turned back to me. "At what point is it enough, Scarlett? At what point do we stop?"
The question sat in the room between us.
I thought about my father. His wheelchair by the window in that small Florida house. The way he stroked my hair and called me his little princess like I was still five years old. The way he'd never walked again because Liam Calloway had gotten drunk and driven into a school parking lot and his father had paid enough people to make it disappear.
"When Liam pays for what he did to my father," I said. "That's when we stop."
Julia held my gaze. A long beat passed.
Then she uncurled her legs and sat up straight.
"Fine," she said. "I'm with you. Until the end."
Something in my chest loosened. I hadn't realized how tightly I'd been holding it.
Jason smiled from the armchair — that quiet, warm smile he did when he was proud of something and didn't want to make a performance of it. "Same," he said simply. "You already know."
I looked at the two of them. My people. The only ones who knew every version of me and hadn't left.
"Okay," I said. "Then here's what we're going to do."
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees.
"Jason — you told me Liam called Sharon and said he's flying to Germany. A week, he said. Business trip. Meeting with the German investor."
Jason nodded. "She believed him. At least on the surface."
"She didn't," I said. "Sharon is too smart to fully believe something that convenient. But she has no proof yet. She's just sitting with the feeling." I paused. "We're going to give her the proof."
Julia frowned. "How?"
"The camera," I said, looking at her. "The one you installed in Madeleine's apartment. Before everything with Marc. Do you still have access to it?"
Julia blinked. Then slowly, a reluctant understanding moved across her face. "Yes. It's still running. I checked it two days ago — the feed is live."
"And Liam has been there," I said. "He's not in Germany. He's here, in this city, in that apartment with Madeleine. I know because Jason confirmed it."
Jason ran a hand through his hair. "He told Sharon he was catching an early flight. He did not catch an early flight."
I nodded. "So here's what's going to happen. Step by step. Are you listening?"
Neither of them spoke. That was answer enough.
"First — I'm going to contact Klaus Brenner. The German investor. The real one." I watched Julia's eyes widen slightly. "I know his assistant's name and his company's contact line because I've been sitting at that desk at Best Auto for months reading every email that comes through that office. I'm going to make sure Klaus Brenner calls Sharon directly — not Liam, Sharon — to discuss the investment moving forward. A routine call. Friendly. Confirming they're excited to work together."
Julia's mouth opened slightly. "But Sharon already thinks the investment is confirmed—"
"Exactly," I said. "So when Klaus calls her to confirm something she thinks Liam already handled — she's going to realize immediately that there was no trip. No meeting. No Germany. Because the investor is calling her from his office, relaxed, no urgency, no scheduled visit with Liam." I paused. "The story collapses in about thirty seconds."
Jason let out a slow breath. "That's clean."
"And then," I continued, "while Sharon is standing there holding her phone with that information, I'm going to send her a message. Anonymous. With the photo from the camera in Madeleine's apartment. Liam and Madeleine together. The address included."
The room was very quiet.
"I'm going to time it precisely," I said. "She'll be in the house. I'll send it when I know she's near the door — when she's already moving, already reacting. And I'm going to leave a key. A copy of Madeleine's front door key. Outside the building entrance, in an envelope with her name on it. So she can walk straight in."
Julia stared at me. She wasn't horrified exactly. She was something more complicated than that — someone watching a machine they helped build finally reach full speed and not being entirely sure how they felt about the view.
"You've been planning this for a while," she said.
"Since Liam told Jason about the Germany trip," I said. "Yes."
Jason leaned back in his armchair and looked at the ceiling. "Sharon is going to lose her mind."
"Yes," I said.
"Madeleine is going to lose her mind."
"Yes."
"And Liam—" He stopped. Exhaled. "Liam is going to come home to a wife who knows everything. In the house he built. With the life he built." He looked at me. "That's not just an ending, Scarlett. That's a demolition."
"He demolished my father's life," I said quietly. "And then he went home and had dinner."
No one said anything after that.
Julia picked up her coffee cup, looked into it, set it back down. Then she looked at me with an expression I recognized — not agreement exactly, not excitement. Just loyalty. The stubborn, unshakeable kind that had kept her in this from the beginning despite everything I'd put her through.
"The camera footage," she said finally. "I'll get you the clearest frame. Something undeniable."
"Thank you."
"The key," Jason said. "I'll handle getting a copy made. I know someone who won't ask questions."
I nodded.
We sat there for another moment, the three of us, in the clean quiet of Jason's apartment with the city spread out below us and the whole last act of this thing laid out on the table between us like a blueprint.
Julia broke the silence first.
"I cannot believe," she said slowly, "that this is my life."
Jason laughed. A real one, surprised out of him.
And despite everything — despite Marc and Lana and the golf club and the weight of what was coming — I laughed too.
Because she wasn't wrong.