Chapter 8

The trial began in April, two months after Camille gave birth to a healthy, squalling baby girl named Sylvia Sterling.

Camille had spent the intervening months healing. The ribs had mended, the sutures on her temple had faded to a thin pink line, and the initial shock of the attack had settled into something steadier—a determination, hard and cold as marble, to see this through to the end.

She testified on the second day, dressed in a dark blue suit that she'd chosen deliberately: professional, composed, the uniform of a woman who had built an empire and would not be reduced to a victim on a witness stand. The prosecutor walked her through the facts. She answered each question with precision, no more and no less than the truth.

When they showed the video, she watched it again. She watched herself fall, watched Eleanor's heel connect with her ribs, watched her own pale face look up at the camera with something like hope. She didn't cry. She didn't flinch.

The jury had watched the footage three times by then, and as they deliberated, Camille waited in the hallway with Marcus beside her, their daughter asleep in a carrier at her side.

"You handled that beautifully," Marcus said quietly.

"Did I?" Camille looked at the courtroom doors. "I don't feel beautiful. I feel antique."

"Well, you look beautiful." He kissed her head, right where the sutures had been. "And you're the strongest person I've ever met."

The jury deliberated for five hours.

When they returned, the courtroom fell silent, and the foreperson, a middle-aged woman with grey hair and steady eyes, read the verdict in a clear, calm voice.

Guilty on all counts.

Eleanor Prescott sat at the defense table, her practiced mask finally cracking into something real: red-faced, trembling, her platinum hair falling loose from its careful ponytail. She looked at the jury, at the courtroom, and finally at Camille, and for a moment, Camille saw something she hadn't expected.

Not remorse.