Chapter 8 - SELENE’S SENTENCE
Selene cooperated.
Extensively.
She turned over messages.
Offshore account instructions.
Recordings of Marcus.
Her testimony proved the conspiracy began before our engagement.
Marcus had researched women around me.
Selected Selene because she moved comfortably in wealthy circles, understood corporate structures and carried enough personal debt to make money persuasive.
She hated hearing herself described that way.
Good.
She still chose.
A judge eventually sentenced her for conspiracy, theft of protected corporate records and fraud-related offenses.
Less than Marcus.
More than nothing.
Before sentencing, she asked to see me.
I went.
Not because I owed her.
Because unfinished anger is expensive.
She looked different.
Simpler clothes.
No jewelry.
“Do you hate me?”
“No.”
She seemed surprised.
“I did.”
“What changed?”
“I stopped wanting you to occupy that much space.”
Her eyes filled.
“Did you ever love me?”
“Yes.”
She cried.
I did not.
Maybe later.
“Was any of it real?”
“Probably.”
I looked at her.
“That doesn't make what you did unreal.”
She nodded.
“I'm sorry about Lily.”
That mattered more than she knew.
“You should tell Mara someday.”
“If she'll hear it.”
“Her choice.”
Selene almost smiled.
“You really have changed.”
“I dislike everyone saying that.”
She laughed through tears.
Then:
“Marcus told me that child would be forgotten the minute the dinner ended.”
My chest tightened.
“Why?”
“Because staff children are invisible.”
There it was.
The entire scheme in one sentence.
Marcus believed Lily invisible.
Believed Mara invisible.
Believed junior employees invisible.
Believed everyone below his level existed only as scenery.
That arrogance destroyed him.
Not my power.
May you like
Not my investigators.
A six-year-old looking at a clutch.
