Chapter 7 - THE RECKONING OF CELESTE
If Adrian was broken by the walls of county jail, Celeste was undone by the sheer weight of her past returning to haunt her.
A week before the formal trial was set to begin, Gabriel and I attended a private deposition hearing in the federal courthouse.
Celeste sat at a long wooden table flanked by her court-appointed attorney. She wore a grey prison jumpsuit, her hair unwashed and streaked with grey roots, looking nothing like the polished, snobbish woman who had sneered at me from the kitchen doorway of my former home.
Across the table sat Gabriel Vale, flanked by six senior prosecutors and the state attorney general.
"Mrs. Cross," the prosecutor began, opening a black binder. "We have reviewed your proposed plea agreement. In exchange for your full testimony regarding the 2006 kidnapping of Maya Vale and the subsequent financial embezzlement schemes, the state is willing to drop the capital conspiracy count."
Celeste nodded frantically, her hands clutched together on the table. "Yes! I will tell you everything! I will testify against Adrian! He was the driving force behind the poisoning! I told him it was too extreme, but he wouldn't listen!"
Gabriel leaned forward, resting his heavy hands on the table. The air in the conference room instantly dropped twenty degrees.
"I don't care about your plea agreement with the state, Celeste," Gabriel said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "The state can give you twenty years or ten. It doesn't matter."
Celeste looked up, confused. "What... what do you mean?"
"I mean that while you were sitting in your cell this week, my legal team acquired every single property, mortgage, and personal loan held by your family extended network," Gabriel explained smoothly. "Your sister in Chicago? Her boutique business defaulted on its lease yesterday because I bought the commercial building and canceled the contract. Your nephew’s university tuition fund? Frozen due to tax irregularities identified by my daughter."
Celeste gasped, her face turning red. "You... you can't target my family! They had nothing to do with this!"
"You took my family from me twenty years ago," Gabriel countered, his eyes dark with unyielding vengeance. "You forced my daughter to live as a nameless orphan while you raised your son on stolen money. You will sit in a six-by-eight cell knowing that everyone who carries your bloodline is financially ruined because of what you did."
Celeste turned to her public defender, grabbing his sleeve. "Do something! He’s threatening my family!"
The defender sighed, looking at Gabriel with a mixture of helplessness and cold indifference. "Mrs. Cross, Mr. Vale hasn't broken a single law. He’s simply executing standard commercial rights as a primary creditor. If you wanted mercy for your family, you shouldn't have abducted his child."
I leaned forward across the table, looking directly into the eyes of the woman who had watched her son slap me across the face three weeks ago.
"Do you remember what you said to me in the kitchen, Celeste?" I asked softly.
Celeste trembled, unable to answer.
"'Be grateful he lets you live here, Mara,'" I quoted, a slight smile touching my lips. "Now, I offer you the same advice. Be grateful the state gives you three meals a day in a concrete room. Because outside those walls, there is nothing left of the life you stole."
Celeste burst into hysterical tears, burying her face in her hands as the guards stood up and escorted her back toward the holding cells.
May you like
Gabriel reached across the table, taking my hand in his. "Are you alright, Maya?"
"I've never been better, Father," I said, looking at the door through which Celeste had just disappeared. "For thirty years, I was running from a shadow. Today, I am the shadow."
