In my mind, I was twenty again, curled up in a chair beside Mom’s hospital bed. The room had smelled like antiseptic and stale air, but she’d insisted we open the window a crack so she could “pretend the breeze was ocean air.” Her voice had been weak, but her eyes—always sharp, always clear—were fixed on me with fierce intensity.

“Alexandra,” she’d said, taking my hand. Her fingers had felt so light, like brittle leaves. “The beach house is our legacy. That place is more than wood and nails. Your grandparents built it with their own hands. They brought me there when I was a baby. I said my vows to your father on that porch. We brought you home there your first summer.”

I remembered crying, blurting out something about how we should be talking about treatments, not property. But she’d shaken her head, stubborn as always.

“Listen to me. Victoria has been trying to get her hands on that house since the day she married your father. I can see it. The way she looks at it—like it’s not a home, but a prize. I won’t let that happen. I won’t let her take everything.”

She’d reached over to the bedside table, picked up a pen, and started signing papers as Margaret, her lawyer and long-time friend, quietly explained the trust structure. I hadn’t understood all the legal language then. I didn’t need to. Mom had made one thing absolutely clear: the beach house would be protected.

Protected for me.

Protected from Victoria.

I blinked back to the present, my eyes stinging.

I’d been 20 when Mom died. Twenty and not remotely prepared to become the keeper of our family’s most sacred place. Victoria had wasted no time stepping into the void my mother left behind—redecorating, rearranging, rewriting the family’s story until it looked like she’d always been there and Mom had just been some short-lived draft of our lives.

But not with the beach house. That was the one thing she hadn’t been able to rewrite, no matter how hard she tried.

My phone buzzed against my leg, jerking me out of my thoughts. I pulled it out and glanced at the screen.

Victoria.

I’ve already told the local police you’re not welcome there, her text read. Don’t embarrass yourself by trying to break in.

My eyebrow twitched. Break in. To my own house.

Instead of replying, I opened a new message and forwarded her text to Margaret, adding a brief explanation.