17. In Full View #2
He offered a single nod and turned. We walked side by side down the corridor, leaving the stale smell of sweat and bleach behind us.
The main lobby opened up ahead, leading toward the exit.
I adjusted the lapel of my blazer. For months, I had hunched my shoulders to appear small and frightened. Now, I lifted my chin.
We reached the front doors of the county building. Bastien pushed the thick glass open. The winter wind hit my skin the second we stepped outside. The chill did not make me shiver. It felt bracing. It cleared the lingering stench of the prison from my nose.
A massive crowd swarmed the bottom of the exterior concrete steps.
Local reporters, photographers, and high-society gossips clustered together in thick wool coats.
Camera bulbs fired in a blinding sequence, turning the gray afternoon into a pulsing strobe.
The overlapping roar of voices echoed against the stone facade of the detention center.
People shoved against the metal barricades. Breath plumed in the winter air as they fought for position. Microphones jutted upward from the mob.
“Mrs. Stanton!” a reporter shouted, pushing a foam-tipped microphone forward. “Is it true your husband was arrested? What happened in the house?!”
I looked over the frantic faces of the press.
Several women from Lavinia’s country club hovered near the front.
If I walked down these steps in silence, they would decide exactly how this story was told.
They would spin rumors over brunch to protect their own class, painting my mother as a tragic victim of a misunderstanding.
I had to ruin their names right here on the concrete.
Margaret shoved her way to the front of the press line. She gripped the collar of her mink coat.
“Cecilia, darling!” Margaret called out. “Where is Lavinia? We heard the most dreadful rumors about the police raiding the estate!”
Bastien shifted his stance. He moved his broad frame in front of me to shield my body from the flashing cameras. He reached out to guide me down the stairs, preparing to clear a path to his waiting SUV.
I didn’t take his hand. I stepped around him.
I walked to the very edge of the top step. Planting my boots near the drop, I squared my shoulders against the noise. The wind whipped past me, but I stood tall, refusing to duck my head. Raising one hand in the air, palm out, I demanded silence.
The chaotic roar of the crowd tapered off into scattered murmurs. The flashing bulbs slowed.
“Please, everyone,” I said, projecting my voice over the stone steps. “I will make one statement, and then I am going home to my daughter.”
I lowered my hand. The crowd below me obeyed the gesture. The overlapping shouts died off, replaced by the mechanical clicks of camera shutters and the whistle of the winter wind whipping across the exposed stairs. The sudden quiet left a strange, tense emptiness in the courtyard.
“Are you getting this?” a photographer hissed to his partner, bumping his camera against the metal barricade.
“Quiet down, she’s speaking,” Margaret muttered, leaning her fur-draped arms over the steel barricade to get closer.
I looked down at Margaret’s face. She was straining forward, desperate for the gossip.
She wanted a tragic, weeping victim. She was waiting for a story she could take back to the country club dining room, a piece of gossip she could weaponize to make Lavinia look like a saint and me look like a fool.
I gripped the collar of my wool blazer, bracing myself against the cold. I would not give her a single tear to work with.
“My husband, Tobias Stanton, is currently in federal custody,” I said.
My voice bounced off the stone exterior of the detention center. Despite the sudden silence, I didn’t let it shake. The reporters thrust their foam-tipped microphones higher into the air.
“He orchestrated my kidnapping last month to pay off illegal debts he kept hidden from his firm,” I continued.
A collective murmur rippled through the front line of journalists.
Ballpoint pens scratched against steno pads.
Confirming his hidden debts on the record was the first nail.
Tobias’s prestigious firm monitored every public statement made about its executives.
By the time I finished speaking, they would be emptying his office into cardboard boxes.
I gripped the edge of a stray microphone jutting up near my knee, holding it steady against the gusting wind.
“When he realized that wasn’t enough, he and my mother, Lavinia Vandeveer, attempted to murder me,” I said.
“Lavinia?!” Margaret gasped, clutching her pearls. “Attempted murder?!”
Margaret went ashen, leaving her cheeks stark and hollow beneath her expensive makeup. She stared at me, her mouth hanging open. The reporters ignored her, pressing harder against the barricades.
The social execution was complete. Lavinia’s existence revolved around her curated image and her proximity to wealth. She had traded my life to maintain it. The faces of her friends dropped in horror. Her name was now synonymous with the worst kind of depravity.
“They were having a prolonged affair and believed they could inherit my estate,” I said. “They were caught on tape, and they will face trial. My only priority now is my daughter.”
I released the edge of the foam microphone. I turned my back on the barricades. The press erupted again, a chaotic surge of shouts fighting the icy gusts.
“Mrs. Stanton!” a reporter screamed over the barricade. “One more question! What are you going to do next?!”
I didn’t break my stride. Bastien fell into step beside me, taking the brunt of the aggressive barrage of camera flashes. I kept my eyes fixed on the icy stone steps. Patches of frost clung to the edges, slick and treacherous under my boots. We reached the bottom of the plaza without incident.
“Watch your step on the ice,” Bastien said, extending a hand near the bumper of the waiting SUV.
“I’ve got it,” I murmured.
I reached out, bracing my bare palm against the frozen metal of the door frame. The vehicle idled by the curb, a steady, low rumble vibrating through the steel chassis. I ducked my head and slid into the spacious backseat.
Bastien shut the solid door behind me. The thick glass cut off the screaming of the press in an instant. The sudden, insulated quiet of the cabin washed over me, ringing in my ears.
I let out a long breath. The climate control system blew heated air across my chilled face, soothing my skin and taking the sting out of the wind.
For the last several months, I had curated every single expression. Every smile had been a calculated lie. Every touch from my husband had forced me to swallow my disgust and play along.
Sitting in the plush seat, I let the mask drop. The performance was over. I was alone in the vehicle, finally out of reach of Lavinia’s floral perfume and Tobias’s hovering shadow. The air was clean.
Without the threat of anaphylaxis hanging over my dining room table, without the constant need to monitor their moods, I could just exist.
Bastien opened the driver’s side door and climbed behind the wheel. He shifted the car into drive, pulling away from the curb. The tires cut through the thin layer of slush on the asphalt as we merged into the city traffic.
“You handled that perfectly,” Bastien said, keeping his eyes on the road. “They’re ruined before the ink on the police report is dry.”
I looked up, catching his gaze in the rearview mirror. He was right. Tobias and Lavinia had built their lives on country-club prestige and perfect appearances. I had just detonated all of it on live television.
Margaret and the rest of the country club elite would ensure my mother’s name became a permanent joke. Tobias would be stripped of his firm, his tailored suits, and his arrogant pride. They were going to rot in that county jail.
I stared out the tinted window at the passing skyscrapers. I had won. My thoughts drifted to the nursery waiting for me on the second floor of the estate.
“Take me home, Bastien,” I said. “I want to see Petra.”
“You got it.”
I leaned my head back against the leather headrest, closing my eyes as the city moved past.