Chapter 8 - The Federal IndictmentThe federal courthouse in downtown Miami was surrounded by reporters and camera crews when the grand jury handed down its final indictments.
Grant Holloway walked up the courthouse steps in handcuffs, flanked by federal marshals. His tailored designer suits had been replaced by a standard orange detention jumpsuit underneath a heavy windbreaker. His hair was unkempt, his shoulders permanently slumped under the crushing weight of forty-two counts of wire fraud, grand larceny, forgery, and securities manipulation.
Behind him walked Delaney, her face hidden beneath a oversized pair of designer sunglasses and a black hoodie, sobbing quietly as her legal team pushed her through the media gauntlet.
Mavis had been hospitalized two days prior due to stress-induced hypertension, her social standing completely evaporated, her name erased from every elite charity board and country club registry in the state of Florida.
From the tinted window of a black town car parked across the street, I watched the spectacle unfold.
My attorney sat beside me, closing a thick manila folder containing the final asset recovery tallies.
"All properties have been successfully liquidated and transferred back to the trust," counsel reported. "Restitution has been secured in full. The prosecution is asking for a fifteen-year federal sentence without the possibility of parole."
I looked out at Grant as he paused briefly at the courthouse doors, his eyes scanning the street as if searching for a miracle. For a split second, our eyes met through the tinted glass of my car.
He didn't look angry anymore. He looked entirely, irrevocably broken.
He finally understood the scale of what he had thrown away. Not just a fortune. Not just an empire. But a woman who had loved him enough to give him a kingdom, while asking for nothing in return except honesty.
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I rolled up the car window, shutting out the noise of the flashing cameras and the shouting reporters.
"Drive," I instructed softly.
