The paramedics worked with terrifying efficiency. “Blood pressure is dropping, 90 over 60,” the female paramedic said, pressing a cool stethoscope against my stomach. “Fetal heart rate is elevated at 178, but it’s rhythmic. We need to transport immediately to Saint Jude’s Trauma Unit.”
“Go,” Eli said, kissing my forehead gently. “I’m right behind you once the scene is secured.”
As they lifted me onto the gurney, the pain in my pelvic bone flared like liquid fire, tearing a ragged scream from my throat. Hearing my cry, Trent made an involuntary step forward, his instincts as a controlling narcissist overpowering his fear. “Claire, tell them! Tell them you fell! If you leave like this, you’re ruining our family!”
Before Trent could complete his forward stride, Trooper Davis grabbed him by the collar, spun him around, and slammed him chest-first against the marble kitchen counter with enough force to rattle the hanging copper pots.
“Hey! Get your hands off my son!” Helen shrieked, advancing on the officer with her acrylic nails bared. “Do you know who his father is? Richard Vance sits on the judicial oversight committee! You will lose your badges by morning!”
“Helen, shut your mouth!” Richard snapped, his voice trembling with a mixture of terror and fury. Unlike his wife and son, Richard understood the law. He understood that a former Marine investigator with red-and-blue lights in the driveway didn’t come without backup, and he understood that the walking stick on the floor was covered in my blood and Trent’s fingerprints.
“Richard Vance,” Eli said, turning his icy stare toward the patriarch. “Retired judge. Pillar of the county bar. Tell me, Judge… what is the statutory penalty for aggravated domestic battery on a pregnant woman resulting in great bodily harm?”
Richard looked away, his jaw working silently.
“Ten to twenty-five mandatory,” Eli answered for him, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. “And what’s the penalty for soliciting the assault? Telling him, ‘Hit her harder, she needs to learn’? Davis, did you get the audio transmission from the preliminary call?”
Davis snapped the handcuffs around Trent’s wrists with a series of sharp, metallic clicks. “Logged and recorded, Investigator. The neighbor’s Ring camera across the cul-de-sac captured the yelling through the open bay window, and the victim’s emergency line remained open for ninety seconds before disconnection.”
Trent winced as the steel bit into his skin. “Eli, please. She drove me to it! She was threatening to take the baby and leave! She was going to ruin my career!”
“Your career ended the second you raised that stick,” Eli said. He reached over with a gloved hand, lifted Nicole’s still-broadcasting phone with a pair of evidence tongs, and held it up to Trent’s face.
The screen showed over twelve thousand active viewers. The comments were scrolling at blinding speed:
*Did he just hit a pregnant woman with a cane?!*
*Someone call the FBI!*
*That’s Trent Vance, the defense attorney!*
*Look at his mother cheering him on! Monsters!*
“Smile for your followers, Trent,” Eli whispered. “The whole world just watched you destroy yourself.”
As the EMTs wheeled me out the front doors into the flashing crimson night, I saw the flashing lights illuminating the manicured hedges of the Vance estate. Neighbors were gathered at the edge of their manicured lawns, watching the golden boy of the legal community being led down his own steps in steel cuffs, head hanging in utter defeat.
Chapter 4 – The Sanctuary of White Walls
