Chapter 19 - Guilty
He smiled because he still thought he could scare me. He was wrong.
Count one: guilty.
Count two: guilty.
Count three: guilty.
By count seven, Julian had stopped smiling.
By the final count, Julian stared at the table.
The state assault case also ended guilty.
Richard Cole took a plea after the Saint James handler agreed to testify.
Selene pleaded guilty to financial crimes and obstruction. Her cooperation reduced her sentence, but it did not erase it.
She wrote me one letter. I didn't answer. Forgiveness is not the same thing as access.
At sentencing, I stood to give my impact statement.
Julian watched me.
"For years," I said, "I thought survival meant staying calm enough to get through the next day. I thought if I understood his moods, chose the right words, and hid the right parts of myself, I could control the damage."
I looked at him.
"I was wrong."
"You did not hit me because you lost control. You hit me because you believed you had control. That's different. And that's why I'm not asking the court to save me from you. I'm asking the court to hold you responsible for what you chose."
I sat down.
The combined state and federal sentences meant decades in prison.
Outside, reporters shouted questions. I walked past them.
Dad waited beside the car.
"You okay?"
"Ask me tomorrow."
A week later, Dad called me to Arden Capital. A folder waited on his desk.
"What's this?"
"My resignation plan."
I stared at him.
"Why?"
"Because I'm seventy-one, because I made mistakes, and because I don't want my last act as your father to be handing you another cage."
He slid the folder toward me.
"The board wants you to take my seat."
I laughed once.
"Of course they do."
"I told them it was your choice."
I opened the folder.
At the bottom was a blank signature line.
For the first time in years, nobody had forged my name there.
I picked up the pen, then set it down.
"No," I said.
Dad blinked.
"No?"
May you like
"I'm going to build something they can't hand me."
And I already knew exactly what it would be.
