Chapter 246
“I admit that I fabricated the events at the Ferris wheel,” Charla continued, her voice mechanical, emptied of all soul. “I admit to the attempted kidnapping. Ms. Morton is innocent of all charges.”
“See?” Davy grinned at Ashley. “Mommy won! Hilliard made her do it.”
Ashley didn’t smile. A chill moved up her spine, slow and deliberate.
“No,” she said quietly, shaking her head. “Hilliard wouldn’t do it this way. He’d let her rot in a cell.”
She watched Charla’s blank, humiliated face. This was too clean. Too surgical.
“This is Amerigo,” Ashley said, the horror arriving fully formed. “He’s clearing the battlefield. Removing the legal obstacles so he can file for custody without a scandal attached to the mother.”
“They’re coming for the children,” Kegan’s voice confirmed over the projection, arriving at the same conclusion.
Ashley grabbed her phone, hands shaking, and typed a frantic warning to Cailin.
They were out of time.
The studio lights were blinding, burning against Charla’s retinas, making her headache throb in time with her pulse.
Hilliard had summoned Cailin here — an unspoken command delivered through his lawyers. He wanted her to witness this, to watch the final nail driven into Charla’s coffin as a twisted form of reassurance. So Cailin stood off to one side, arms folded over her chest, a prisoner in all but name, watching the last moments of Charla’s humiliation play out under the studio lights.
Hilliard stood ten feet away. He hadn’t looked at her once since they’d entered the building. He was focused entirely on Charla, his expression unreadable — a statue carved from ice.
“And finally,” Charla read, her voice fraying, “I sign this affidavit confirming the truth of this statement.”
A lawyer placed a document in front of her. Charla’s hand shook so badly the pen skittered across the paper. She signed it.
It was done. The English family was ruined. Cailin was legally exonerated.
“Cut,” the director called.
The red light on the camera died.
Charla slumped in her chair. She looked small. Defeated.
“Are you happy?” Hilliard asked, stepping forward. He looked at Cailin then, and the ice in his eyes cracked — revealing, just for a moment, a glimpse of the man who had once held her hair back when she was sick. “It’s over, Cailin. The charges are gone. You don’t have to run anymore.”
“It’s not over,” Cailin said, her voice tight. “Your grandfather is just getting started.”
“I can handle Amerigo,” Hilliard said. He reached out as if to touch her arm, then stopped an inch from her skin. “Just — come home. Let me meet them. Properly.”
Charla let out a laugh. It was a wet, jagged sound.
“You really are pathetic, Hilliard,” she whispered.
Hilliard turned to her. “Shut up, Charla. You’ve done enough.”
Charla stood up, swaying slightly. Then she walked toward him — not unsteadily, but with a kind of terrible lucidity that was more frightening than anything else she had shown today.