He asked about my income, my net worth, implying I didn’t need anything from my father. He suggested I orchestrated the gala exposure to punish Victoria personally.
I looked at him and answered evenly, “I exposed her because she committed crimes. I didn’t choose the venue to be cruel. I chose it to stop her from controlling the story.”
He asked, “So this was revenge.”
I shook my head slightly. “This was accountability,” I said. “Revenge would’ve been gossip. Accountability is evidence.”
Victoria’s attorney frowned. “You wanted her humiliated.”
I held his gaze. “I wanted her stopped,” I said. “Humiliation was just a side effect of her own actions.”
Then Helen Briggs testified.
Helen’s presence shifted the room. She wasn’t emotional. She wasn’t theatrical. She was relentless in her clarity.
She described the patterns she’d witnessed in Savannah: Victoria isolating spouses, controlling accounts, positioning herself as indispensable, then quietly draining assets. She spoke about how people were too embarrassed to admit they’d been conned.
When Victoria’s attorney tried to dismiss her as bitter, Helen didn’t blink.
“I’m not bitter,” Helen said. “I’m experienced.”