Chapter 248 The Right Move
ADRIANA
“Stand straight,” I said. “Receive your sentencing on your feet.”
He straightened, not out of respect, I knew that, but because defiance required energy and whatever had been powering him through the past several days had finally run out.
“Everything you own will be seized and destroyed. Your property, your assets, your holdings — all of it. None of it will pass to anyone. It will be burned because it carries the same contamination you do.” I kept my voice level and my eyes on his face. “You will be publicly paraded through the pack you terrorized — every person you governed, every person who watched you act with impunity for six years, will have the chance to see what you are without the title protecting you.” I paused. “After that, I will have your head. And after that, your body will be left in the open ground. No burial, no ceremony, no marker. The earth doesn’t owe you anything.”
Something moved behind his eyes. Not remorse — I didn’t think he was capable of that. But the understanding, finally and fully, that this was real and happening and there was no angle left to work.
Good.
“Take him out.”
The guards moved and he was gone, and I turned to the witnesses before the doors had finished closing behind him.
“I want everyone who testified today to remain for a few minutes,” I said. “Please.”
They stayed, and I came down from the bench and stood in front of them — not above them, just with them in the middle of the courtroom floor.
“What you did today took more courage than most people will ever be asked for,” I said. “You walked into a room with the person who hurt you, sat across from his lawyer while he tried to make this about your character, and you told the truth anyway. I want you to understand what that means.” I looked at each of them in turn. “You are not diminished by what he did. You are not ruined. You are not defined by what happened in his house, and any person who tries to make you feel otherwise will answer to me personally.” I took a breath. “You will each be connected with counseling and medical support within the week. Laura — your children will be provided for. All of you with family, that support extends to them as well. Whatever you need. Whatever it takes.”
After they filed out, I pulled Hazel aside.
“Laura’s previous employer,” I said. “The one who assaulted her before she ever set foot in Damon’s house, who told Damon about her and what he’d done so that Damon would know she was already a target.” I kept my voice low and even. “Find out his name. Bring him in.”
Hazel nodded without blinking. “I’ll have it by tonight.”
“He doesn’t need a full trial. He had his chance to be a decent person and he made a different choice repeatedly.” I picked up my notes. “Go.”
I went to Nancy that afternoon.
Damien wasn’t home when I arrived. Nancy opened the door herself and looked at me with red-rimmed eyes and the posture of someone braced for an ask they’d already decided to refuse.
“If you came to tell me I need to testify—”
“I didn’t.” I kept my voice gentle. “The trial is over, Nancy. It’s done.” I watched something shift in her face — relief, then confusion, then the fragile precursor to breaking down. “Garret and Larry came forward. They told the court what happened in that room. They didn’t leave anything out. And there were other women — eleven who came to testify, and more who couldn’t.” I held her gaze. “He’s been sentenced. He’s not coming back.”
She stood in the doorway for a long moment. Then her knees seemed to give slightly and I caught her arm and we ended up sitting together on the floor in the entrance of the house, which was not where I’d planned for this conversation to happen, but it was where we were.
“I begged him,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Every time. I begged him to stop and he laughed.” She pressed her hand over her mouth. “The babies. He didn’t have to — I would have loved them regardless. I would have kept them. He made me watch.” She stopped. “He made me watch every time.”
I didn’t say anything. I put my arm around her and let her cry, and I stayed there on the floor beside her until the crying slowed and she was still.
I heard the front door open quietly at some point — Damien coming in, stopping when he saw us, understanding without being told that this was not a moment that needed him to speak. He stood in the doorway and listened and when Nancy finally fell asleep against my shoulder he came and lifted her gently and took her to bed, and I stood up and smoothed my clothes and waited.
He came back out with his eyes wet and his expression carrying the specific weight of a man who had just heard the shape of something he’d been trying to imagine for months.
“Thank you,” he said. “For what you did to him. For all of it.”
“I was doing my job,” I said. “But Damien — it was also the right thing. I hope you know the difference between those two things matters.”
He nodded.
“Take care of her,” I said. “That’s the only thing that matters now.”
When I got home, the sitting room smelled like something good and Hazel was opening a bottle of wine with Leo sitting across from her with a glass of something that made me stop in the doorway.
“It’s fruit wine,” Hazel said, without looking up. “Relax.”
“Do you really think I’d give him alcohol?” She looked at me. “I raised him, Adriana.”
“You didn’t raise him, I raised him.” I sat down and accepted the glass she poured. “What are we celebrating?”
“Three weeks of the most intense legal proceedings this kingdom has seen without a sitting King, two exonerations, one sentencing, eleven witnesses protected, and the fact that you are still standing.” She raised her glass. “That’s worth celebrating.”
Leo raised his glass. “You did good, Mum.”
Something about hearing it from him specifically — from my fifteen-year-old son who had sat up with me at two in the morning talking about justice and what it meant to do right by people — made my throat tighten in a way I hadn’t expected.
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
Later, on the balcony, I stood with my phone and played the recording I’d saved months ago — Elijah’s voice, praising me for something small and ordinary, the way he’d done it like it was the most natural thing. I’d played it so many times the battery percentage dropped whenever I opened it.
I didn’t hear Hazel come out until she was standing beside me.
“The doctors are coming tomorrow,” she said. “I pushed for it. They confirmed this evening.” She put her hand briefly on my shoulder. “We’re going to get him back.”
I looked out at the dark garden and held the phone against my chest.
“He needs to hear about all of this himself,” I said. “He needs to come back and hear it from me.”