Chapter 17 - The Trial
Victoria refused every plea offer.
Of course she did.
She wanted a courtroom.
She wanted cameras.
She wanted one final stage where she could transform cruelty into dignity and fraud into family loyalty.
The trial lasted seven weeks.
Rebecca testified first.
Then David.
Then Natalie.
Then Dr. Lyle.
Then Grant.
Watching my former husband testify against his mother was almost unbearable.
Victoria stared at him as if he were already dead.
The prosecutor asked:
“Did your mother instruct you to obtain information about Claire Rowan before you began dating her?”
“Yes.”
“Did you do so?”
“Yes.”
“Did you later marry Ms. Rowan?”
“Yes.”
“Did your mother encourage that marriage for financial reasons?”
“Yes.”
Victoria’s attorney attacked Grant brutally.
Called him a liar.
A failed executive.
A man trying to shorten his own sentence.
All true enough to make the attack effective.
Then came the medical conspiracy.
Grant admitted helping build the false incapacity narrative.
He denied knowing Victoria intended to engineer a second medical crisis.
The recording supported him.
Then I testified.
Victoria’s attorney asked whether I hated her.
“Yes.”
The courtroom shifted.
He seemed surprised.
“You admit that?”
“Of course.”
“So your testimony is motivated by hatred.”
“My feelings are irrelevant to the documents.”
He tried again.
“You activated financial measures that harmed the Mercer family.”
“I activated contractual protections.”
“After a domestic argument.”
“After your client left me bleeding without medication and threatened to falsify the meaning of my medical condition.”
He changed subjects.
Three days later, the jury returned.
Guilty on most major counts.
Not all.
Real life rarely delivers perfect verdicts.
Victoria showed no emotion.
But as marshals approached, she looked at me.
I expected hatred.
Instead, she smiled.
It was the same smile she had given me the first Thanksgiving after I married Grant.
Polite.
Superior.
Cold.
Then she said:
“You still needed my family to become important.”
The courtroom went silent.
I looked at her.
“No, Victoria.”
I almost felt sorry for her.
“You needed my family to remain rich.”
Her smile vanished.
That was the last time we ever spoke.
Outside the courthouse, reporters surrounded me.
“How do you feel?”
“Are you satisfied?”
“Do you forgive your former husband?”
“What happens to the Mercer fortune?”
I answered only one question.
“What happens now?”
I looked directly into the cameras.
May you like
“People go back to work.”
Then I walked away.
