Chapter 11
The aftermath was swift, brutal, and utterly comprehensive.
The live broadcast of the murder confession and the security footage exploded across every news network, social media platform, and financial journal in the world within twenty minutes of the server's unlocking. By noon, the hashtag #JusticeForJulian was trending number one globally.
Detective Miller and four other corrupt officers within the metropolitan police department were arrested at their precinct desks before lunchtime, charged with conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and taking bribes to falsify Julian’s original autopsy and accident reports.
Peter survived the gunshot wound after twelve hours of emergency surgery. Two weeks later, sitting in a wheelchair at a federal arraignment, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, corporate fraud, and grand larceny. In exchange for avoiding the death penalty, he gave three hundred pages of sworn testimony detailing every single crime Evan had committed over the last four years. He was sentenced to forty-five years at a maximum-security penitentiary without the possibility of parole.
Evan’s trial lasted only four days. With Julian’s high-definition video evidence, Sophie’s brave testimony, and the recovered financial trails, the jury deliberated for less than ninety minutes.
He was found guilty of first-degree premeditated murder, attempted murder of Clara and Sophie Vance, attempted murder of Peter Miller, corporate espionage, and federal wire fraud.
The judge, a no-nonsense woman with thirty years on the bench, looked down at Evan from the dais and delivered a sentence that made the courtroom erupt in applause:
*"Evan Vance, you are a parasite who preyed upon the grief of a widow and the innocence of a child to steal the brilliance of a man you could never hope to equal. You will spend the remainder of your natural life in solitary confinement at the federal supermax facility in Florence, Colorado. May God have more mercy on your soul than you had on Julian Vance."*
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Evan was led away in orange scrubs and heavy chains, his face gaunt, his arrogant smirk replaced by the hollow, haunted stare of a man condemned to die in a concrete box.
***
