Chapter 13 - The Sentencing
The trial was a media spectacle, but it was incredibly brief. Faced with Thomas’s meticulous records and the irrefutable digital evidence I provided, Julian’s public defender advised him to plead guilty.
I sat in the front row of the gallery during his sentencing. Julian looked hollowed out. He wore an orange jumpsuit that hung loosely off his frame. When the judge asked if he had anything to say, Julian couldn't even meet my eyes. He stared at the floor, a broken man.
"For the charges of federal wire fraud, tax evasion, and extortion," the judge declared, his gavel raised, "I sentence you to twelve years in a federal penitentiary."
The gavel slammed down. It sounded like the closing of a coffin.
My parents were sitting two rows behind me. My father looked pale and sickly, my mother openly weeping into a cheap tissue. They were currently living in a rented two-bedroom apartment in a bad part of town, surviving entirely on my father's meager social security check.
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I stood up, smoothed my skirt, and walked out of the courtroom without looking back.
The debt was paid.
