Updated Nov 27, 2025 • ~8 min read
Poppy didn’t tell anyone she was going to visit Dominick in jail.
Not Rochelle, who would have tried to stop her. Not her therapist, who would have asked probing questions about why she needed this closure. Not Sabrina, who would have reminded her that anything Dominick said could be used in trial.
She just went.
The county jail was everything she’d imagined from movies—cinderblock walls painted institutional beige, fluorescent lighting that made everyone look sick, the smell of industrial cleaner failing to mask something underneath.
She signed in, surrendered her phone and purse, and sat in the visitation room waiting for them to bring Dominick out.
Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
The door buzzed. Guards led Dominick in, his wrists cuffed, wearing an orange jumpsuit that seemed absurd on someone who’d always dressed in custom suits.
He looked older. Smaller. Or maybe that was just because Poppy wasn’t seeing him through the lens of infatuation anymore.
He sat across from her, separated by plexiglass. Picked up the phone on his side. Waited.
Poppy picked up hers.
“You came,” Dominick said. His voice sounded the same. Smooth, controlled. “I hoped you would.”
“I shouldn’t have. My lawyer would kill me if she knew I was here.”
“Yet here you are.” A ghost of his old smile. “You must need something. Answers? Closure? An apology?”
“All of the above, probably.” Poppy forced herself to meet his eyes. “But mostly, I need to understand. Why, Dominick? Why Rosa? Why me? Why any of this?”
He was quiet for a long moment, studying her through the scratched plexiglass.
“Do you really want to know? Or do you want me to give you the version that makes this easier to process?”
“The truth. For once.”
“All right.” Dominick leaned back. “I killed Rosa because she was going to leave me and take half my assets with her. Assets I’d put in her name to hide from creditors. If she’d disappeared to California with legal claim to the lake house and several hundred thousand dollars in cash… I would have been ruined.”
The casual way he said it—”I killed Rosa”—made Poppy’s stomach turn.
“So it was about money.”
“Partly. But it was also about control. About the fact that I’d spent three years building a relationship, investing time and energy and resources, and she wanted to throw it all away for a job.” His jaw tightened. “Like I was disposable. Like what we had meant nothing.”
“You murdered her because your ego couldn’t handle being left.”
“I arranged an accident because she was going to steal from me. There’s a difference.”
“No. There really isn’t.” Poppy’s hands clenched. “You killed a woman because she wanted to leave. That’s not self-defense or protecting your assets. That’s murder.”
“The courts will decide that.”
“The courts already have. Fletcher confessed. The emails prove you planned it. Rosa’s diary proves you were abusive and controlling. You’re going to prison, Dominick. For the rest of your life, probably.”
A flicker of something crossed his face. Fear, maybe. Or just annoyance at the inconvenience.
“Why did you approach me?” Poppy demanded. “At that gallery. Why seek me out?”
“I told you. You looked like her.”
“But why did you want someone who looked like her? Was it guilt? Some twisted way of bringing her back?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes. It matters to me.” Poppy’s voice rose. “You spent two years pretending I was someone else. Making me wear her clothes, sleep in her bed, visit her cottage. I deserve to know why.”
Dominick sighed, like she was being unreasonable. Like she was the problem.
“I saw you across the gallery and for a moment, I thought she’d come back. That Rosa hadn’t died. It was… intoxicating. The possibility that I could have a second chance.”
“With her. Not with me.”
“With the feeling she gave me. The relationship we had before it all went wrong.”
“Before you killed her, you mean.”
“Before she betrayed me,” he corrected, no remorse in his voice. “I gave Rosa everything. Introduced her to important people. Supported her career. And she repaid me by planning to leave. To steal my money and start over without me.”
“She didn’t steal anything. You put assets in her name. That was your choice.”
“A choice I made because I trusted her. Because I thought we had a future together.”
“You mean you were using her for financial fraud and got upset when she wanted out.”
Dominick’s expression hardened. “Think what you want. The point is, when I saw you, you represented a chance to do it better. To find someone similar but more… compliant. More grateful.”
The word made Poppy’s skin crawl. “I was never compliant. I just didn’t know I was supposed to be questioning everything.”
“Exactly. You trusted me. Loved me. Or thought you did. It was refreshing after Rosa’s constant suspicion and accusations.”
“She was suspicious because you were planning to kill her!”
“She was suspicious because she was paranoid and ungrateful.” He said it like it was fact. Like Rosa’s fear of him was unreasonable rather than lifesaving. “You were better. Easier. More like Rosa was in the beginning, before she changed.”
Poppy stared at him, this man she’d thought she’d loved. Seeing him now, truly seeing him, was like looking at a stranger. Or a monster.
“I was never going to be enough for you,” Poppy said quietly. “Was I? Because I’m not Rosa. Even if I looked like her, even if I wore her clothes and lived in her space, I was still myself underneath. Still a real person with my own thoughts and dreams.”
“If you’d just accepted what I was offering—a good life, financial security, access to my world—we could have been happy.”
“No. We couldn’t have. Because you don’t want a partner, Dominick. You want a possession. Something you can control and manipulate and discard when it stops serving your purpose.”
“That’s your trauma talking. Your therapist feeding you these narratives about abuse and control.”
Even now, he was gaslighting her. Trying to make her doubt her own reality.
“My trauma is real. You caused it. You and your lies and your obsession with a dead woman.” Poppy stood, done with this conversation. “I hope prison gives you time to think about what you’ve done. To Rosa. To me. To everyone who trusted you.”
“Poppy, wait—”
“No. I’m done waiting. Done listening to your excuses and justifications. Done trying to find the man I thought I loved underneath the monster you actually are.” She headed for the guard station. “Goodbye, Dominick.”
“This isn’t over!” His voice rose. “The trial—you’ll have to face me again. Answer questions under oath. I’ll make sure my lawyers destroy you on that stand!”
Poppy paused at the door, looking back one last time.
He looked desperate now. Angry. The mask had slipped completely.
“Do your worst,” Poppy said. “I survived you. I can survive anything.”
She hung up the phone and walked out.
Behind her, Dominick shouted something, but the guards were already moving him back to his cell. She didn’t turn around. Didn’t give him the satisfaction.
Outside, the afternoon sun was too bright after the fluorescent gloom of the jail. Poppy stood on the steps, breathing in fresh air, feeling lighter than she had in weeks.
She’d gotten what she came for. Not answers that made sense—Dominick’s reasoning would never make sense to a rational person. But clarity. Confirmation that the man she’d loved had never existed.
Dominick Langley was a narcissist. A murderer. A manipulator who saw people as objects to be used and discarded.
And Poppy had escaped him.
Her phone buzzed—she’d just retrieved it from the security desk. A text from Rochelle.
Rochelle: Where are you? I stopped by and you’re not home.
Poppy: Running errands. Be back soon.
Rochelle: You okay?
Poppy looked up at the jail, its barred windows and razor wire stark against the blue sky.
Poppy: Yeah. Actually, I think I am.
For the first time since the wedding, it felt true.
As she walked to her car, Poppy allowed herself a moment of hope. The trial was still coming. There would be more trauma, more public scrutiny, more pain to process.
But Dominick couldn’t hurt her anymore. Not really. Because she finally saw him for what he was.
And more importantly, she was finally seeing herself clearly too.
Not Rosa’s replacement. Not a victim. Not the naive woman who’d fallen for a charming sociopath.
Just Poppy. Flawed and healing and strong enough to survive.
That would have to be enough.
And slowly, painfully, she was learning that it was.
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