‘Sure, you’ve got mixed feelings about the experience – about how you were taken to the edge – but that’s because you’re still processing the healing. You made an incredible breakthrough. Every single one of you did.’

She was too cunning to ever admit it to me. ‘That retreat battered me,’ I said, almost shouting, but she interrupted again.

‘You might think that right now – when you’re busy hating me – but when the dust settles, you’ll see it differently. You made lifelong friends there, other people apart from me who’ll support your healing. Who’ll treasure you. We really are a family, Rachel.’ Her voice was honey. ‘And you of all people need a family.’

I started to cry again, fat tears running down my cheeks as I felt the chasm between me and Sophie. The trauma of what had likely been done to me within my new ‘family’.

Her face was alight now. ‘And if I had the resources, I could do much, much more of that work. I could help so many people. I could have Esther beside me: it might finally give her the chance to heal from what your family did to her.’

I curled in on myself, letting her words wash over me.

‘You worked for him, all the way through university,’ she said. ‘He probably doesn’t even realize, but you’re still a signatory on the client account.’ She was like a cancer that had run rampant through the body of our family, no part of our lives left unscathed. ‘When that money lands, you have the authority to divert it before anyone notices. The deal closes on a Friday. I told Esther what to do, and she made sure of it. The weekend is the perfect cover. I can set up an account and we just send the money to it.’

‘I could never do that…’

She cut across me. ‘All of your suffering could be over, Rachel. You could leave the country, start a new life. No more debts and formal warnings, no more pointless battles with your selfish, narcissistic parents. You could finally be your own person.’

It was strange and unexpected, the tremor of freedom that I felt as I listened to those words.

‘Why are you even telling me this?’ I demanded. ‘Why are you risking it? I could just go to the police.’

Amber looked unconcerned. ‘I don’t think they’d believe you. Of course, I’d never do this, but I could just tell them you’ve been weaving these fantasies for weeks. I’m very convincing when I need to be. With the complaint on your records, they might even charge you with wasting police time.’

‘How can you threaten me like that?’