Chapter 3 - The ArrestThe entrance of the apartment building was flooded with flashing red and blue lights.
Two paramedics rushed up the elevator alongside three uniformed Chicago police officers. When the elevator doors opened on the 14th floor, the scene in Apartment 14B was absolute chaos.
Ethan was pacing the hallway, screaming into his mobile phone, while Rebecca was frantically trying to clean the spilled pot roast off the floor with paper towels, trying to destroy any physical evidence of the attack.
"Drop the towels and step away from the kitchen!" the lead police officer commanded, drawing his taser.
"Officer, thank God you're here!" Rebecca instantly shifted into performance mode, twisting her face into a picture of innocent distress. "My daughter-in-law had a psychotic episode! She grabbed my pot of stew, threw it around, and locked herself in the room! She's mentally unstable!"
The bedroom door opened slowly.
Emily stepped out, leaning heavily against the wall for support. Her skin was blistering severely through her torn pants, the raw, red burns agonizingly visible.
"She's lying," Emily said, her voice echoing clearly down the corridor. "Check the security camera mounted above my kitchen counter."
Rebecca’s face turned deathly pale. "What camera?"
"The hidden high-definition security camera I installed the day I moved in," Emily said coldly, holding up her phone. "The entire incident—Rebecca using an unassigned access code, her pouring boiling liquid over my legs, and Ethan demanding I apologize while refusing to render aid—was recorded in 4K resolution and streamed live to an off-site cloud server."
Ethan gasped, looking at his mother in absolute horror. "Mom... you said she didn't have cameras!"
"Shut up, Ethan!" Rebecca shrieked.
The lead officer looked at the burns on Emily's legs, then looked at the video playing on Emily's phone screen. His face hardened.
"Rebecca Whitmore, you are under arrest for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon," the officer declared, pulling out his handcuffs.
"What?!" Rebecca screamed, struggling as the officer pinned her arms behind her back. "You can't arrest me! Do you know who my son is?! He works at Vantage Financial! He will destroy your career!"
"Ethan Whitmore," the second officer stepped forward, grabbing Ethan's arm. "You are being detained as an accessory to domestic violence and failure to render aid."
"Wait! No! This is a misunderstanding! Emily, tell them to stop!" Ethan panicked, his arrogant persona completely crumbling into desperate cowardice. "Emily! I’m your husband! You can't do this to me! Tell them it was an accident!"
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Emily stood tall despite the searing pain in her body, watching her fresh husband and his mother being led away in metal cuffs.
"I promised to take you for better or for worse, Ethan," Emily whispered as the paramedics carefully loaded her onto a stretcher. "You chose the worse. Now you get to live with it."
