Chapter 6 - The Breaking Point
"Are you satisfied now?" my mother whispered, her voice trembling with suppressed fury. "You put your own father in a cage like an animal. Over a bump on the head."
I didn't flinch. I slowly closed my notebook, looked up, and met her eyes with a stillness that seemed to unnerve her more than a shout would have.
"Mom," I said, my voice quiet, carrying clearly across the half-empty courtroom. "Lily has a fractured skull. She spent the night sedated in the pediatric intensive care unit because her grandfather decided to whip her with a leather belt like a slave."
"It was discipline!" she hissed, stepping closer, though the bailiff at the back of the room shifted his weight. "That’s how we raised you! That’s how your father kept this family together for forty years! You think you’re so high and mighty with your law degree, but you’re just ungrateful, spoiled trash!"
"And look what keeping this family together cost us," James spoke up for the first time, his voice dangerously low, stepping in front of me. "Dad beat his own granddaughter until she stopped breathing, and you stood in the kitchen and said she deserved it. You are all monsters disguised as a family."
My mother’s face flushed a deep, mottled crimson. She looked at James, then back at me, her eyes wide with a venomous realization.
"You're dead to us," she whispered, her voice shaking violently. "All of you. Don't you ever call us. Don't you ever step foot near our house again. When your father gets out, we are changing the will, we are erasing you from everything, and you won't get a single dime of what we built."
I gave a cold, humorless smile. "Mom, the only thing Gerald is going to be building for the next ten years is license plates. Keep your house. Keep your money. We never want to see your faces again."
She stared at me for three long seconds, as if she was seeing a stranger she had failed to destroy. Then, without another word, she turned on her heel and marched out of the courtroom, her church pearls swinging against her back like a pendulum.
The courtroom fell quiet again.
Marcus Vance, who had been sitting quietly in the back row observing the arraignment, stood up and walked over to our row. He looked tired, but his expression was deeply supportive.
"Well handled, Rebecca," he said quietly.
"Thanks, Marcus," I said, standing up and buttoning my blazer. "How long until the preliminary hearing?"
May you like
"Seven days," he replied. "Henderson is going to try to push for a plea deal on lesser charges, but given the judge's reaction today, my office isn't budging. It’s going to trial unless he pleads straight up to the felony indictment."
"Let him try to take it to trial," I said, picking up my briefcase. "I'll sit in the gallery every single day and watch him explain his parenting philosophy to twelve jurors."
