Chapter 7 - When the Music Stops Playing
Sutton didn't move from the carpet. Her hands were smeared with the spilled mimosa and dust from the floor. She slowly lifted her head, looking up at me from the ground—the exact opposite of where we had been twelve hours earlier, when she stood on the marble staircase laughing down at my broken body.
"You're a demon," she rasped, her voice shredded. "You destroyed my life. You planned this. You brought him that video."
"Briany brought him the video," I replied calmly. "You destroyed your life the second you decided that another human being’s pain was disposable entertainment for your vanity."
Vesper stepped forward, laying a thick manila folder onto the center of the vanity table. "At eleven-thirty, Miss Campbell, the local police department received the official surveillance footage from the resort's grand foyer security cameras. The footage corroborates the mobile recording entirely. We have formally filed charges for Aggravated Assault with Grievous Bodily Harm."
Stellin’s face drained of what little color remained. "Assault? Fallon, she’s your sister! It was a domestic dispute! Families don't file assault charges against each other!"
"Families don't shatter each other's bones and steal their life savings, Stellin," I said, refusing to call him Father. "The district attorney has already reviewed the medical scans from Dr. Vance. The titanium pins were bent at forty-five-degree angles. That requires immense mechanical force. That isn't a slip; that is an intentional battery resulting in permanent structural impairment."
"I will go to jail," Sutton whispered, her eyes staring blankly at the floor. "I will go to actual jail."
"Yes," Marcus added cheerfully. "You likely will. But before the criminal trial begins, there is the matter of civil damages."
Marcus pulled out a calculator and a formal summons. "We are filing an emergency commercial lien against all personal assets held by Stellin, Althia, and Sutton Campbell. The damages include:
$122,450 for the unauthorized merchant diversion.
$85,000 for Miss Fallon Campbell’s lost aerospace structural certification contract in Chicago.
$140,000 for acute orthopedic reconstructive surgery and external halo fixation.
$250,000 in punitive damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress."
"Total initial judgment demand: Five hundred and ninety-seven thousand, four hundred and fifty dollars," Marcus concluded, snapping his leather binder shut with a sound like a pistol shot.
Althia collapsed onto the chaise lounge, hyperventilating into her silk handkerchief. "We don't have that kind of money! We don't have it! You’ll take our house! You’ll take our cars!"
"Your house in Scottsdale has seventy thousand dollars in accessible equity," Vesper noted coldly. "Our firm’s collection division will execute a primary judicial foreclosure notice on that equity by Friday morning. You have thirty days to vacate the premises."
"Fallon, please!" Stellin dropped to his knees beside Sutton, crawling toward my footrest with tears spilling over his cheeks. "We are your parents! We raised you! We gave you everything!"
"You gave me a bed and treated me like an employee," I replied, looking down at the man who had ordered a taxi instead of an ambulance while I lay in agony on the floor. "When I succeeded, you demanded money for Sutton. When I failed, you called me clumsy and pathetic. When my leg was broken last night, your only concern was whether I stained the travertine."
I leaned forward, my eyes locking onto his. "You didn't raise a daughter, Stellin. You tried to build a cash cow to fund a monster. Now, the cow has left the barn, and the monster has to pay her own bills."
The double doors of the suite opened once more.
This time, it wasn't the resort staff. Two uniformed county sheriff's deputies stepped inside, their utility belts creaking in the silence.
May you like
"Sutton Campbell?" the taller deputy asked, unhooking a pair of steel handcuffs from his belt.
Sutton didn't even scream. She just curled into a ball on the floor, pulling her ivory lace robe over her face as the metal ratcheted tightly around her wrists.
