Chapter 8 - The Desperate Move
Desperation breeds stupidity.
Sitting in a jail cell unable to post her $500,000 bail, Beatrice managed to make a phone call to a shady associate. If she could just forge a quitclaim deed transferring the brownstone into an LLC she controlled, she thought she could sell it before the criminal trial concluded and flee the country.
She had someone forge Maya's signature, backdating it to the night of the wedding.
It was the dumbest mistake she could have made.
When the forged document was submitted to the county clerk, Victor's legal team was instantly notified. They had placed a fraud alert on the property the night Maya came to my apartment.
The forgery added three federal wire fraud and grand theft charges to Beatrice's rap sheet. The DA was no longer offering a plea deal. They were going for maximum sentencing.
I visited Beatrice in holding before her trial. She looked terrible. Her hair was graying at the roots, her skin pale, the designer clothes replaced by a bright orange jumpsuit.
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"You came to gloat?" she sneered at me through the glass.
"No," I said, my voice steady, feeling more powerful than I ever had in my life. "I came to tell you that my daughter’s face has fully healed. But you are going to rot in here. You thought we were weak, Beatrice. You forgot that mothers are the most dangerous creatures on earth when you threaten their young."
