The Rose He Killed novel Chapter 121

Chapter 109: Victoria’s End

Bella POV

25 Points

The courtroom was smaller than I expected. I’d testified in arbitration rooms before – but this was a criminal preliminary hearing, wood-paneled and fluorescent-lit, with a court reporter in the corner and a prosecutor who looked like she hadn’t slept since days, I sat in the witness box and answered the questions precisely, the way I answered everything, and I didn’t look at Victoria.

Not because I was afraid to. Because I’d decided she didn’t deserve the directness of my gaze.

The evidence was comprehensive. Caleb’s security team had documented everything – the burner phone chain, the IP trail, the two men’s statements once they understood the scope of what they were facing, the crane yard warehouse’s security footage from a neighboring building that had caught the ambush setup beginning hours before I arrived. The compliance officer’s name had been pulled from a forum thread Victoria had accessed from her Geneva apartment, a detail so sloppy it would have embarrassed her

once.

The prosecutor was methodical and good. I answered her questions without editorializing and watched Victoria’s lawyer try to find the gaps in the chain of custody and fail.

When the defense got their turn, they asked me whether I had any prior relationship with their client.

“We met twice, socially,” I said. “Brief encounters at events. She made a comment at a gala approximately few months ago. I didn’t respond and excused myself.”

“And you have no personal animosity toward Ms. Lane?

“I don’t know Ms. Lane well enough to have personal feelings about her,” I said. “What happened in that alley was a business problem. I’m treating it as one

The lawyer sat down. He’d gotten nothing useful.

Across the room, Victoria was watching me, I could feel it and when the session recessed and we were standing in the corridor while our lawyers conferred, she appeared at the edge of my peripheral vision, her own attorney’s hand on her arm, and she said my name.

I turned and looked at her directly for the first time.

She looked like someone who had spent months running and had arrived somewhere with nothing left to spend. Still beautiful – that hadn’t gone anywhere – but thin in the way of a body that had been running on adrenaline instead of food, and her eyes had the brightness of someone who had committed so fully to a story that they’d lost the ability to evaluate it from outside.

“He’ll hurt you again,” she said. “That’s who he is. That’s who he’s always been, you think he’s changed because he’s performing for the child”

“I think,” I said, “that you should stop talking.”

“He doesn’t know how to love anything, Bella. He didn’t love me, and he won’t”

“He didn’t love you,” I agreed, which stopped her. “And that hurt you, and you channeled that into something destructive and now you’re here. That’s a real, human, understandable chain of events.” I held

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Chapter 109 Melona’s End

Claim

her gaze: “But it’s not my problem. What Caleb does or doesn’t feel is between him and me, and what you Think about it is not something I’m going to carry.”

“He’ll hurt you again, she said, quieter this time, and now it sounded less like a weapon and more like the thing she’d been telling herself every night in Geneva to make the scheme feel justified.

“Maybe,” I said. “But that’s my choice to make.”

Her lawyer stepped between us then, professionally urgent, and I turned back to my own team, and that was the last thing we said to each other in that building or, as far as I intended, ever.

The restraining order was granted before noon. The criminal charges – conspiracy, assault, harassment were filed by three o’clock. Victoria’s lawyer was already in talks about à plea, which the prosecutor’s office had indicated they were open to providing when certain conditions were met, one of which was a full accounting of any co-conspirators.

Jade was going to have an interesting week. Caleb was waiting outside the courthouse, which he’d been explicitly told not to do and had clearly decided to do anyway. He fell into step beside me on the steps without making it a thing, matching my pace, his jacket open in the afternoon wind.

“How was it?” he asked.

“Fine. She’s going to plead.”

“Good, and the other part?”

“She told me you’d hurt me again.” I looked straight ahead. “I told her it was my choice to make.”

Caleb was quiet for a moment. “It is,” he said.

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