Chapter 8 - The Shattered Glass
Shawn took three stumbling steps toward the glass doors. He pressed his palms against the cold pane, his eyes wild, hollow, and filled with a terrifying realization.
“Lauren!” he yelled through the glass, his voice muffled by the heavy security barrier. “Lauren, please tell them! Tell them this was an internal family arrangement! Tell them you authorized the line of credit!”
I stood on the wet pavement beside Anthony, staring at the man I had shared a bed with for eight years.
He was asking me to commit perjury. He was asking me to step into the federal crosshairs, to risk going to prison alongside his sister, just to save his career and his family’s vanity.
“Did you forge my name, Shawn?” I asked, my voice flat, though I knew he couldn't hear me clearly through the storm and the thick glass.
He read my lips. His expression crumpled into pathetic, desperate pleading. He mouthed the words: *Please. Think of Maya.*
*I am thinking of Maya,* I thought. *And that is why you will never touch our lives again.*
Inside the lobby, the sergeant grabbed Olivia by her upper arms, pulled her to her feet, and clicked cold steel handcuffs around her wrists.
Olivia let out a blood-curdling scream. “Anthony! Anthony, you coward! You can’t do this to me! I built your social circle! Carter, tell them! Tell them Anthony was abusing me!”
Carter Vance didn’t say a word. He kept his head bowed, staring at the floor, completely refusing to look at the woman he had destroyed his life for.
Anthony stepped closer to the glass. His face was carved of granite. He didn’t blink. He didn’t yell. He just watched his wife of nine years get escorted toward the rear exit in chains.
Then Anthony turned to the detective standing near the door. “Detective, the man in the center of the room—Shawn Sterling—is an accessory to grand larceny, interstate wire fraud, and forgery. The victim of the forgery is standing right here.”
Shawn’s mouth fell open. “Anthony, no! I’m your brother!”
“You ceased being my brother the day you helped Carter sleep with my wife and helped Olivia steal my grandfather’s foundation money,” Anthony said through the door’s intercom speaker. “Officer, arrest him.”
Two officers stepped up behind Shawn.
Shawn didn’t fight. He didn't scream like Olivia. He just dropped his head, let out a ragged, broken sob, and let the cuffs lock around his wrists.
As they led him toward the cruisers, he locked eyes with me one last time.
May you like
There was no anger left in him. Only the sickening, hollow realization that his desperate need to appease his toxic sister had cost him his marriage, his daughter, his career, and his freedom.
***
