Chapter 11 - The Aftermath
The silence inside Clara’s estate felt luxurious compared to the suffocating tension of the Vance household. Two days had passed since the courtroom battle, yet the shockwaves of Brenda’s secret still reverberated through my mind.
Marcus had tried calling my phone forty-three times within the first twenty-four hours. Each call was automatically routed to a secure folder managed by Arthur, accompanied by a formal cease-and-desist warning. He was a man completely unmoored. Not only had he lost his wife and newborn son, but the very foundation of his identity—his bloodline, his history, his connection to the woman who raised him—had evaporated into a manufactured lie.
"He's outside," Arthur announced quietly, stepping away from the front window of the study and sliding the blinds back into place.
My heart skipped a beat. "Marcus?"
"No," Arthur replied, shaking his head. "Brenda. She’s standing at the front security gate, hammering on the iron bars like a banshee, screaming for you to let her see her grandson."
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Clara didn’t even look up from her tablet, where she was reviewing asset-freezing motions. "Call local precinct dispatch. Tell them she’s violating the restraining order within five minutes of service. Let's see how much fight she has left when she's sitting in a holding cell."
True to Clara’s word, within ten minutes, the wail of police sirens echoed up the driveway. Through the tall glass windows, we watched two squad cars box in Brenda’s sedan. As officers slapped steel cuffs around her wrists, her shrieks of rage pierced the afternoon air, cutting off abruptly as they shoved her into the back of the cruiser.
