Chapter 12: Preparing the Testimony
The spare bedroom of our coastal cottage had been converted into a makeshift war room. Stacks of yellow legal pads, blue binders filled with bank statements, and decades-old tax audits covered the surface of the oak desk. Dad spent the entire afternoon reviewing documents, his glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose as he cross-referenced account numbers that Veronica had tried desperately to hide offshore.
I sat on the corner of the bed, sketching with a box of colored pencils in a thick paper notebook. Every so often, I looked up to watch him. The tension in his jaw was unmistakable, but unlike the stressed, overworked man I remembered from the city estate, there was a quiet, unshakable resolve in his posture. He wasn't running anymore. He was standing his ground.
“Dad,” I said softly, holding up a drawing of the rocky shoreline with the cottage perched above it. “Do you think she’ll go to prison?”
Dad stopped writing, his pen hovering over a yellow pad. He took off his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger before looking up at me. His expression softened instantly. “Veronica made choices, Sofia. Terrible choices that hurt a lot of people, not just us. The law requires accountability. When you break the rules that keep society safe, there are consequences. It’s not about revenge; it’s about justice.”
“I remember when she made me polish her shoes,” I whispered, looking down at my hands. Even now, years later, I sometimes imagined the smell of black polish on my skin. “She told me nobody would ever believe a six-year-old child over a woman of wealth.”
Dad stood up from the desk, walked over to the bed, and sat down beside me, pulling me gently against his shoulder. I felt the familiar, comforting warmth of his navy suit jacket—the same jacket he had wrapped around my shoulders the day he rescued me from the foyer.
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“She was wrong,” Dad said, his voice deep and steady. “People are listening now. And tomorrow, in that courtroom, every single lie she told is going to be exposed under oath. You never have to be afraid of her shadow again.”
The afternoon bled into evening, the sky turning a bruised shade of purple over the horizon. We didn't order takeout or turn on the television. We sat together in the quiet sanctuary of our home, preparing ourselves for the final chapter of a battle that had defined our lives for far too long.
