Chapter 17
The verdict took eleven hours.
Rocco walked the courthouse hallway the entire time.
His limp grew worse.
He refused to sit.
Alina finally said, “If you collapse before justice, I will be furious.”
He sat.
Immediately.
Serena laughed.
Then covered her mouth, surprised by the sound.
I smiled.
Hope felt strange in that hallway.
Fragile.
Almost rude.
When the jury returned, my stomach twisted.
Dominic stood.
His confidence had thinned, but it had not vanished.
The clerk read the first charge.
Guilty.
Then the next.
Guilty.
And the next.
Guilty.
Fraud.
Kidnapping.
False imprisonment.
Assault.
Conspiracy.
Witness intimidation.
Every word placed a brick between Dominic and the people he had hurt.
Serena cried into Alina’s shoulder.
Rocco bowed his head.
I stared at the floor where my shoes had once carried trays for men like Dominic.
When the final guilty was read, Dominic turned.
His eyes found me.
“You started this,” he mouthed.
I shook my head.
No.
He had started it.
His father had started it.
Every person who chose cruelty and called it business had started it.
I had only refused to let seven coins stay scattered.
At sentencing, Rocco spoke.
Then Alina.
Then Serena.
Her voice was steady.
“You made me love my own captor,” she said. “But you did not destroy my ability to love. That belongs to me.”
May you like
Dominic looked away first.
That was justice too.
