Chapter 241 THE TESTIMONY OF A MAD WOMAN
AURORA’S POINT OF VIEW.
Yet again, my heart jumped to my throat. We watched Morgan walk in, her orange jumpsuit now much bigger on her as if she'd lost even more weight overnight. My mind took me back to our conversation and the terms I had to agree to. She glanced at me, first Kai, and then me. Her eyes were full of nothing I could pick upon.
The guards ushered her to the witness box, and I noticed she never glanced at Armando, not even once. “Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”
“Yes, I do.” Her voice came out much clearer than yesterday, but still without any emotion I could pick up on. Levi nodded, looking at us for a second before turning to her. Like us, he was also apprehensive about how this could do.
Morgan was unpredictable, a nd although I agreed to her terms, I wasn’t sure if she had changed her mind. “If you want me on your side, I want a life….not one where I live like a fucking animal.” She’d hissed, leaning back to drag the prison phone over.
“Morgan….you’re going to jail. Denise confessed to your crime before she died; the court can rule on that alone. There’s nothing we can do about that.”
“I know, Aurora. I know it’s over for me. What I want is a way I can live through all that nonsense! I want a television, food, clothes… manicure, and pedicure service. Even though I’m going to rot for the rest of my life, or a couple of good years, I will live like a human being and not an animal.
"And I want the Mercer family to pay for it," she had added, her voice dropping into that chilling, entitled tone I rememvered, she dropppd the man-woman act totally, now smirking at us. She knew as well as we did that she had the upper hand. "If I’m going to give you Armando’s head on a silver platter, I want my cage to be made of gold. I want to enjoy the privilege of a rich heiress even while being locked up. That’s my price; that’s my offer, Aurora Mercer."
I had looked at Silas, then at Kai, then my mother… they each nodded, realizing and accepting her upper hand, and finally, I glanced back at her, at the desperation masked as arrogance in my step-sister's eyes. For a second, I pitied her.
She had no other means of survival, so she wanted to use any means necessary to have a tiny sliver of victory. So not only out of desire to win, but out of mercy and compassion, I had nodded. We had signed her life away into a luxury prison of our own making, just to ensure she signed Armando’s life away into a real one.
Now, as she sat in that witness box, the weight of that deal sat heavily pressing down in my stomach, but still, she could reveal all we agreed upon, dooming us all to save Armando.
"Miss De la Vista," Levi began, his voice cautious and testing the waters. "The defense claims that the only person involved in the crimes Armando is accused of was your late mother, Denise, and that your father was merely a bystander who had no choice but follow his wife. Is that an accurate description of the hierarchy within your home?"