Free Web NovelChapter 412: Chapter 412
Aria’s POV
"Sophia is not my sister." I corrected.
"They are both in custody, and you stand here looking at me like you didn’t cause this?"
"I didn’t cause it," I said. My voice was completely steady. "They both caused it. When they decided to commit crimes that are against the law."
"You pretended!" She was almost shouting now. "You came to our house not too long ago, you sat at our table, you let us think things were being repaired , and all along you were building a case against your own father?"
"I sent you evidence," I said. "Multiple times. I gave you the truth in as many forms as I could find and I handed it to you anonymously." I looked at her. "You didn’t use them or maybe you just chose not to believe them."
"I knew they were from you, and yes, I didn’t believe them because I knew they were fabricated!" She jabbed a finger toward me. "You wanted to destroy my marriage the way you destroyed yours, and you thought if you took Patrick from me—"
"Mother." The word came out sharper than I intended. "Listen to what you are saying."
She opened her mouth.
"Listen," I said again, quietly. "You received proof that your husband was cheating on you with a woman he claimed had died. You got proof that Sophia was in fact his biological daughter. Yet you chose to remain blindsided just because you didn’t want to lose a man who does not even have the slightest respect for you."
Her chest heaved. Her eyes were bright.
She raised her hand again to slap me.
I caught her wrist firmly.
"Don’t," I said simply. "Don’t ever try to slap me again."
She stared at me. I held her gaze and I did not let go of her wrist and I did not look away.
"I have never," I said, "met a woman so determined to disbelieve the things that were plainly true. To be honest, I am ashamed of you, I wish you were not my mother." My grip loosened. I released her hand. "The case will be heard in court. The evidence will speak for itself. You’ll see everything then."
She stared at me for a long moment. Something behind her eyes wavered.
Chloe and Amelia appeared in the doorway behind me, side by side, like an immovable wall.
"Mrs. Darvin," Amelia said, her judge’s voice coming through even in the casual register, "the matter will be settled in court. I think it would be best for everyone if you went home."
Margaret looked at them. Then back at me.
"We shall see," she said, through her teeth. "We shall see in court." freёwebnoѵel.com
She turned and walked away.
I let out a slow breath.
Chloe put a hand on my shoulder. I reached up and covered it with mine for one brief second. Then I straightened and went back inside.
*****
Several days later, it was time for the court hearing. The courtroom was full.
The public gallery was packed. Cameras were permitted in the corridor only, but reporters lined every accessible space outside, and the feed was running live on three different networks.
I sat beside my lawyer with my hands folded on the table, my wolf quiet and watchful beneath the surface.
Nathan was in the gallery, on the second row. Jonathan was in court too. Williams, for once in his life, was dressed appropriately. Rowland sat in the front row of the gallery with his arms folded and his jaw set. Logan was beside him. Chloe and Amelia were at my table, having insisted on being present in a support capacity.
Patrick entered in custody and looked, for the first time since I could remember, diminished. Prison changes the architecture of a man’s posture. He had been inside for less than a week and it was already beginning.
His eyes found me immediately.
I looked back at him without expression.
His lawyer was good. I had expected that. Patrick had always spent money on protection.
Tyler took the stand as a witness and gave his account of how things happened.
Patrick’s lawyer’s arguments were polished, he argued that the evidence presented was circumstantial and that the witness had a personal grudge, the documents he claimed, were plausible forgeries.
After several back and forths, my lawyer declared that we had a final proof that Clarence was in fact alive and he would like to present it.
The judge asked him to go ahead.
Patrick’s face, across the room, tightened incrementally at those words.
Just then, the doors at the back of the courtroom opened.
Murmurs rippled in the court as everyone wondered what was about to happen.
Clarence walked in.
I watched Patrick’s face go through several stages of something in rapid succession before it settled on an expression I had rarely seen on him before.
Fear.
Clarence was flanked by two enforcers and she walked with the careful steadiness of a woman who had prepared herself for this moment, but preparation and reality are different things, and the reality of two hundred faces turning toward you, faces that believed you were dead, was something that preparation could only partially account for.
She looked healthy. She looked, frankly, better than she had the last time I had seen her at that restaurant that night.
The courtroom erupted.
The judge’s gavel came down several times before the noise dropped to a manageable level.
Margaret, in the gallery, had gone the colour of old paper.
