Chapter 4: The House of Falling Mirrors
The legal proceedings that followed were the final act of a tragedy. In the federal courtroom, Eleanor Vance didn't even need to testify. The evidence—the audio recordings, the financial records, the digital breadcrumbs of the attempted assault—spoke for themselves. The media dubbed it "The Siege of Sterling," a sensationalized portrait of greed meeting a force of nature.
Evelyn sat in the defendant’s chair, her designer clothes looking like a costume in the fluorescent light. She was forced to watch as her assets were frozen, her properties seized, and her name dragged through the mud. Every time she looked toward the gallery, she saw Eleanor, who never once lost her cool, never once blinked. It was a psychological execution. Evelyn, who had lived her life believing she was the predator, finally understood that she was merely a nuisance, a small-time criminal who had mistakenly tried to bite the hand that kept the world turning.
