My stepmother handed me a trash bag of my clothes and said, “Your father is d;ea;d, and the house is mine. Get out.” She slammed the door in my face while her kids laughed from the window. I was eighteen, broke, and alone. She thought that was the end of the story. She didn’t know my father had left a separate, secret will in a safety deposit box that only I had the key to. Ten years later, I bought the company she worked for. Today, I’m going to walk into her office and ask her the same question she asked me: “How does it feel to lose everything?”

“No, Victoria,” I said, buttoning my jacket. “This is accounting.”

She screamed as they dragged her toward the door. She grabbed the roll of trash bags, clutching it like a lifeline.

I followed them out.

We walked through the open-plan office. Dozens of employees—the people she had bullied and belittled—stopped working to watch.

They saw their tyrant being escorted out by security, holding a trash bag, weeping.

No one looked away. No one offered help.

I stood by the elevator.

“Get out,” I said, echoing her words from ten years ago.

The elevator doors closed on her face.