“I came home three hours early and found my seven-month-pregnant wife on the floor, bleeding, while my mother held her by the hair. Then I saw the note on Savannah’s phone.” / Chapter 12 / 20

Chapter 12 - The Desperate Plea DealThree weeks before the trial was set to begin, Arthur Vance requested an emergency conference in the District Attorney's office.

Savannah, Julian Ross, and I sat on one side of the long oak conference table. Sarah Lin sat at the head.

Arthur Vance walked in, looking thoroughly exhausted, and tossed a signed affidavit onto the table.

"My client is breaking," Vance admitted flatly, pulling out a chair. "She can't handle county jail. Her high blood pressure is spiking, and she's terrified of serving time in a state penitentiary. She wants a plea deal."

"What are her terms?" Sarah Lin asked, leaning back in her chair.

"She will plead guilty to one count of misdemeanor assault and one count of grand theft," Vance proposed. "In exchange, she receives five years of probation, surrenders her interest in the Nevada shell account to pay full restitution, and agrees to enter anger management classes. No prison time."

I let out a cold, humorless laugh. "She beat my pregnant wife, threatened her for three years, stole our money, and tried to break into our home with a crowbar. And you're offering anger management?"

"Mr. Sterling, she is your mother—" Vance began.

"She lost the right to call herself my mother the moment she put her hands on my wife," I cut him off, leaning forward. "There will be no misdemeanor deals."

Sarah Lin tapped her pen against her notepad. "The District Attorney’s office will accept nothing less than a guilty plea to Felony Aggravated Domestic Battery and Felony Grand Theft. Minimum sentence: eight years in a state correctional facility."

Vance paled. "Eight years?! That’s a death sentence for a woman her age!"

"She should have thought about that before she recorded her threats on tape," Julian Ross added coolly. "If you take this to a jury, Mr. Vance, they will watch three years of physical abuse photos and listen to her own voice. A jury will give her fifteen."