Chapter 16
Serena testified the next day.
She wore no makeup.
No designer armor.
Just a gray dress and a trembling voice.
She admitted the affair had restarted six months before the wedding dinner.
She admitted she helped Julian hide records.
She admitted Eleanor threatened her brother.
Then she said something no one expected.
“Eleanor told Julian to seduce me again.”
The courtroom stirred.
Julian stared at the table.
Serena continued.
“She said if Khloe caught us, Julian could frame her as jealous and unstable. If Khloe didn’t catch us, I could help push the transfer documents through.”
My stomach turned.
Even the affair had been weaponized.
The defense tried to destroy Serena.
They called her jealous.
Greedy.
A liar trying to save herself.
She nodded through tears.
“I was all of those things at times,” she said. “But Eleanor Vance still did what she did.”
That honesty helped her more than perfection would have.
Then the prosecutor showed hospital records from my father’s final months.
A nurse had come forward.
She remembered Eleanor visiting him.
She remembered Dad getting worse after those visits.
She remembered seeing a vial in Eleanor’s purse.
For years, she said nothing.
Fear.
Again.
Always fear.
Now she spoke.
By the end of the week, Eleanor’s pearls looked less like elegance and more like evidence from a costume.
When the judge denied bail, she finally lost control.
“You ungrateful little nobody,” she screamed at me. “My son made you!”
I stood.
“No,” I said. “My father raised me. My mother loved me. My brother stood by me. Your son used me.”
Her face twisted.
“And you lost him.”
May you like
I smiled sadly.
“No, Eleanor. I survived him.”
