He went. Susan looked like she had aged ten years. Her hair, always perfectly coiffed, was now messily pulled back in a ponytail. Her face, without makeup, looked gray and tired.
“Son,” she leaned toward the glass partition separating them, “thank you for coming.”
“Hello, Mom. How are you?”
“How is she?” Mike didn’t answer the second question. “I’m fine. Listen, I know how all this looks, but you have to understand. I did it for you. For us. So you would have a future.”
“For me?” Mike scoffed. “You stole four million dollars for me?”
“I wanted to provide for you. So you would never want for anything.”
“I never wanted for anything! I had a job, a house, a wife. I didn’t need anything from you except your love.”
“I did love you. I do.”
“Love isn’t theft, Mom. And love isn’t lies. And you’ve been lying to me my whole life.”
Susan leaned back, and something hard flashed in her eyes.
“She taught you this. Your ‘wife.’ She turned you against me.”
“No, Mom. You turned me against you. With your own actions.”
“Mike, listen.” Her mother-in-law’s voice became wheedling. “It’s not too late. If you testify in my favor, if you say I was acting under duress, that I was forced…”
“You want me to lie under oath?”
“It’s not a lie. It’s saving our family.”
“What family?” Mike stood up. “The one you destroyed with your greed and lies? The one you tried to annihilate by sending hired actors after my wife?”
“I wanted to open your eyes to what she is!”
“You wanted to ruin my marriage because you were afraid Ellie would find out the truth. And she did.”
Susan was silent. A new expression appeared in her eyes. Not remorse, no. More like the cold calculation of a loser.
“You’ll regret this,” she said quietly. “Someday you’ll realize you betrayed your own mother for some…”
“Goodbye, Mom.”
Mike turned and walked toward the exit.
“Mike!” she shouted after him. “Mike, come back!”
He didn’t look back.
That evening, he told Ellie about the conversation. Every word, every inflection.
“She still doesn’t get it,” he said. “She still thinks it’s your fault, that you stole me from her.”
“And you? What do you feel?”
Mike was silent for a moment.
“Relief,” he finally said. “Strange, isn’t it? My mother is in jail, and I feel relieved.”
“It’s not strange. You’re finally free from her manipulation.”
“Yeah. I guess that’s it.” He turned to her, cupping her face in his hands. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being you. For not letting me stay blind. For loving the real me, with all my flaws and weaknesses.”
“I will always love you, no matter what.”
He kissed her—gently, deeply, with a promise of forever. And Ellie knew they had made it through the worst. The trial was still ahead, there would be more difficulties, but they would face them. Together.
The courtroom was packed. Journalists, curious onlookers, employees from Summit Construction—everyone wanted to see the conclusion of the high-profile case. Ellie sat in the front row, next to Mike. He held her hand tightly, not letting go.
“All rise! The court is now in session.”
Everyone stood. The judge, a stern woman in her fifties, took her seat.
“We are hearing case number…” She read a long number. “The State versus Susan Miller, on charges of…”
Ellie was only half-listening. She looked at her mother-in-law, who was led in by bailiffs. Three months in jail had changed Susan beyond recognition. There was no trace of the powerful, self-assured woman. Before the court stood an aged, stooped figure in a baggy jumpsuit. But her eyes… her eyes were the same. Cold, calculating. When her mother-in-law’s gaze found Ellie, it blazed with hatred. Mike squeezed his wife’s hand tighter.
“Defendant, do you understand the charges against you?”
“Yes, Your Honor…” Susan’s voice was quiet, broken.
She was playing the victim. And she was playing it well. Ellie remembered how, not long ago, this woman had stood before her, powerful, confident, threatening. “You’ll regret this,” she had hissed then, “I will destroy you.” Now, a completely different woman stood before the court. Or perhaps the same one, just wearing a new mask.
“How do you plead to the charges?”
“Not guilty. It’s a mistake. I was framed.”
A murmur went through the courtroom. The judge banged her gavel.
“Order! The prosecution may begin.”
The prosecutor, a young man with a sharp gaze, stood and began to read the indictment. Figures, dates, sums—it all fell upon the room with a heavy weight.
“Between 2020 and 2023, the defendant, using her official position, systematically embezzled funds from Summit Construction. The total amount of the theft was four million, two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars.”
Someone in the gallery whistled.
“The money was funneled through a network of shell companies,” the prosecutor continued. “A portion of the funds was transferred to offshore accounts. The defendant also purchased real estate in Costa Rica valued at over three hundred thousand dollars.”
Ellie listened and remembered how it all began. The accidentally found documents, the first suspicion, her mother-in-law’s threat. It felt like a lifetime ago.
“Furthermore,” the prosecutor raised his voice, “the defendant attempted to destroy evidence and compromise the key witness—her daughter-in-law, Eleanor Miller. To this end, she hired a Mr. Samuels, who entered the witness’s home and took provocative photographs.”
“Objection!” Susan’s lawyer jumped up. “That has not been proven!”
“We have an audio recording of Mr. Samuels’ confession,” the prosecutor replied calmly, “as well as records of monetary transfers from the defendant to his account.”
The judge nodded.
“Objection overruled. Please continue.”
The trial lasted two weeks. Every day, Ellie came to the courtroom and listened to the witness testimonies. Former colleagues of her mother-in-law spoke of irregularities in the accounting, of documents that went missing, of questions that were not to be asked. Mr. Henderson testified about how Ellie came to him with her initial suspicions. How he didn’t want to believe it, but then saw the evidence with his own eyes.
“Susan worked for the company for twenty years,” the CEO said. “I trusted her implicitly. That was my mistake.”
Ellie herself also testified. She told everything from the beginning. About the documents she found, the threats, the late-night visit from Samuels. When she finished speaking, there was silence in the courtroom. Even the journalists had stopped scribbling in their notepads. The story she told was too incredible and too terrifying. Kate sat in the gallery as a support witness. She had come specially, taking time off work. When Ellie stepped down from the stand, her friend squeezed her hand.
“You did great. You held up perfectly.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police immediately?” the defense attorney asked.
“Because my husband is the defendant’s son. I didn’t want to destroy their relationship without concrete proof.”
“So you were gathering dirt on your mother-in-law?”
“I was looking for the truth, and I found it.”
The lawyer tried to pressure her, to find contradictions in her testimony, to hint at personal animosity. But Ellie stood firm.
“Witness,” the judge intervened, “do you harbor ill will toward the defendant?”
Ellie paused.
“Yes, Your Honor, I do. She tried to destroy my marriage, my life, my reputation. But my testimony is not about revenge. It’s about facts. The documents speak for themselves.”
Mike also testified. It was the hardest day of the trial. Ellie watched him walk to the stand, pale, his face set like stone. She saw his mother watching him from the defendant’s box—with pleading, with hope.
“Witness,” the prosecutor began, “please describe your relationship with the defendant.”
“She’s my mother.” Mike’s voice was hollow. “She raised me alone after my father died. She was everything to me.”
“Were you aware of her financial activities?”
“No. I worked in a different department. I wasn’t involved in accounting.”
“When did you learn about the embezzlement?”
“When my wife told me. At first, I didn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it.”
“And then?”
Mike looked at his mother. Their eyes met.
“Then I saw the proof. And I realized that the person I had loved my whole life was a stranger to me.”
“Witness,” the defense attorney interjected, “couldn’t your wife have fabricated the evidence out of personal animosity toward your mother?”
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