Chapter Forty-Four
Sloane
The courtroom is a goddamn sea of flashbulbs and judging eyes, a shark tank waiting for the scent of blood.
I am led in with chains rattling at my ankles, the orange jumpsuit replaced by a cheap, ill-fitting grey suit the state provided. It feels like sandpaper against my skin. The nausea is rising again—a bitter, acidic tide I am struggling to swallow. My head is spinning, and the secret in my stomach is a heavy, pulsing thing. I still don't know if it's a miracle or a death sentence, but it's there, thrumming beneath my ribs.
I look at the gallery. Vane is there.
He is surrounded by federal marshals, yet he still looks like a fucking king in exile. When our eyes meet, he looks at me with a protective ferocity so intense it nearly knocks me over. He sees my pale face, my trembling hands, and the shadows under my eyes. He thinks I'm sick because of the prison. He thinks I'm breaking because I can't handle the darkness of a cell.
He has no idea that I am carrying his life inside me. He has no idea that the "data" has changed forever.
"All rise," the bailiff intones, the sound like a hammer.
The judge, a woman with a face like weathered granite, looks down at the piles of evidence. "Mr. Sterling, your counsel informs me you wish to make a statement before we proceed with the indictment of Ms. Vance."
Vane stands. He doesn't look at the judge. He doesn't look at the cameras. He looks only at me.
"Your Honor," Vane's voice is a low, controlled thunder that silences the entire room. "The audio Arthur Sterling provided is a forgery. But that is irrelevant to the truth of this dynamic. I am here to state for the record that Sloane Vance acted under my direct, brutal coercion for the entirety of her employment."
The air leaves the room. I can't breathe.
"Every 'crime' she is accused of was a mandate from my office," Vane continues, his voice hard as flint. "She is not an accomplice. She is a victim of my 'Total Compliance' protocols. I used the financial leverage of her mother's medical care to buy her silence and her soul. If she broke the law, she did it with my knife at her throat."
A collective gasp ripples through the gallery. The journalists are typing frantically. Vane is lying to save me. He is taking every disgusting rumor, every "Ice King" label, and turning it into a confession. He's taking the "Monster" title and wearing it like a crown of thorns just to open my cage.
"Vane, no," I whisper. The desperation in my voice is the same raw agony I felt the day my mother fell into her coma. I want to scream that he's lying, that he's a fool, that I stayed because I wanted to.
"I have the forensic evidence to prove Arthur's forgery," Vane says, his gaze never leaving mine. "But regardless, Ms. Vance is innocent. If there is a criminal in this room, it is the man standing before you. Process her release. Now."
The judge bangs her gavel, but it's drowned out by the chaos.
Vane is being led away by the marshals, his hands cuffed behind his back. He stops at the edge of the railing as a guard begins to unchain my ankles. He leans over, his face inches from mine, smelling of sweat and that familiar, expensive spice.
"Take the deal, Sloane," he whispers, his voice thick with a raw, bleeding emotion I've never heard before. "Take the money from the Swiss trust and fucking go. Don't look back. Don't audit the past. Just live. For once in your life, just live."
"Vane... I have to tell you—" My hand goes to my stomach, my fingers trembling against the cheap fabric of the suit.
"Don't," he says, a small, tragic smile touching his lips. It's the look of a man who has finally found peace in his own destruction. "Don't say anything that makes me regret saving you. Just go."
They drag him through the side door to be processed for the very cell I just left. I collapse into my chair as the last metallic clack of his shackles fades away. I am free. But the world is empty.
I look at the exit. I look at the heavy door where they took him.
I am no longer an asset. I am no longer a proxy. I am a mother. And the man who gave me this life is going to rot in a cage, thinking he's a monster, never knowing that he left the only good thing he ever created behind with me.
I stand up, my legs shaking, and walk toward the light.