Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
Washington, DC, Federal Courthouse
Present Day
Kenna stared at the room full of people, half of whom should have gone home hours ago. They’d all stuck around, as if what she had to say was of vital importance. That she might have changed the fate of the world.
This farce of a court case needed to be done already.
“You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?
” Hasworth was back on her feet. The prosecutor was supposed to be here to prove the defendant was responsible for the deaths of all those people in Chicago, while the defense attorneys proved she was acting under duress.
Not in control of her actions. Or that she believed she was acting in a kind of self-defense.
“Plenty of people face trauma in their lives. Mine might be different, but it’s not the worst a human has endured. I’ve made it through a lot, survived, and built a family.” Kenna grabbed a tissue from the box the judge had given her and dabbed the corners of her eyes.
“That’s a gracious way to look at it.”
Kenna said, “I’ve met a lot of people who’ve gone through worse than me. Working cases. Finding victims. Children. Vulnerable adults. I was able to fight back in a lot of the situations I found myself in. And I was never alone.”
Even when she’d thought she was by herself. Without hope, the way Bradley had believed he was when he took his own life.
Kenna had always had God with her, even in the darkness when she hadn’t known He was there. Emmanuel.
“What a heartwarming story.” The lead defense attorney stood, a distinctly mocking tone in his voice. “Defeating the big, bad evil in the world. The power of love and family. Meanwhile, my client had no one to stand with her. She was completely alone. Isn’t that true, Mrs. Jaxton?”
She wasn’t supposed to answer a question like that. But Kenna wasn’t an FBI agent who had to follow the rules anymore.
“We all make our own choices,” Kenna said. “And we have to face the consequences of those choices. That’s what integrity is.”
“Your Honor—” Hasworth began.
The defense interrupted. “It’s unorthodox, I know. But this has been an unorthodox trial from start to finish.”
The judge asked, “Would the defense like to cross-examine the witness?”
Kenna wasn’t sure which of them thought she was going to make their point for them.
Hasworth wanted her to provide testimony on how this was all probably inevitable.
How the defendant had been raised as an asset for Dominatus.
How she had been taught to take life and insinuate herself into situations like a spy.
The defense wanted her to talk about how there was no way she could ever have escaped her fate. It would always have been tied up with Dominatus. That, in a way, they’d done this to themselves in pushing her to the point that she’d effectively snapped and killed them all.
“Yes, Your Honor.” The defense attorney looked at her.
She didn’t look at the defendant. Kenna couldn’t even meet her gaze. She didn’t know what she would see there.
He asked, “Is it true that your parents were both a part of this group, Dominatus?”
“Yes, they tried to escape it. My mother—at least, I think of her as my mother—faked her death to keep my father safe. She went back to Dominatus and later raised her other daughter as part of the group. She felt she had no choice but to keep my father and me safe by allowing us to believe she was dead.”
“And my client?”
“She likely never knew any other life than theirs. Children are born to the women Dominatus claims as mothers, raised by parents who are part of the group in a kind of adoption. Those children are then raised to be assets who infiltrate every facet of society in a grand plan to steer a country, or the whole world, the way Dominatus has planned for it to go.”
Kenna had seen it with her own eyes. She’d been manipulated by them, duped by them, nearly torn to pieces by them. She’d lost family members to the fight. In the end, it could have cost her everything, but God had His hand on them through it all.
She continued, “Her future would likely have been to become one of their mothers. They consider that their highest honor. But the woman isn’t given a choice. They’re selected as nothing more than an incubator for the next generation.”
“It’s my understanding that there’s a generation of women in Dominatus who will never have children. That it was, in fact, your mother who sterilized everyone except you.”
Kenna nodded. “That’s correct. They’ve managed to get around the problem by artificial insemination, but the women of Dominatus won’t have children that are their own.”
Her mother had tried to deal a blow to the group, but once again, they’d adapted. There were factions within the group who would never give it up. Kenna and her family had taken on the task of finding and dismantling every part of Dominatus until she had put a stop to all of it.
But she’d had to make the worst kind of choice in order to put herself in the position to do that.
A choice she just knew the defense was about to bring up.
“The goal is to dismantle them,” Kenna said. She had to say that. People needed to know—especially Dominatus—that the group was on borrowed time.
One mass casualty event, as tragic as that was, hadn’t dealt a death blow to the group. There was still work to be done. But Kenna and the rest of Banbury Investigations were in this fight until the very end.
She’d made that promise, and she intended to keep it.
The defense attorney almost looked smug. “My client, acting under the worst kind of duress, attempted to do just that. Because after a lifetime of subjugation and terror, she found the power to fight back. To act in self-defense.”
“As I stated when I began, I wasn’t present to witness the event.” She wanted to call it a massacre, because that’s what it had been. But that was a term the media was using, trying to sensationalize the biggest trial in decades.
He continued, “It’s my understanding that you are now the head of this group, Dominatus. You’re their leader, are you not?”
Kenna stared at him, unwilling to lie under oath. “Yes, I am.”