Chapter 2: The Harvest of Justice

"Arthur Vance..." Vanessa whispered, her voice trembling as she shrank back into the velvet cushions. "No... this is a mistake. Elena is just a nobody!"
"My daughter," Arthur Vance said, his voice dropping to a deadly, quiet register, "is the sole heiress to the Vance Empire. And you two vermin treated her like garbage."
Two elite medics from my father's private team rushed to my side, gently lifting me from the floor. As they moved me, the diamond pendant around my neck caught the light. One of the security tech officers stepped forward, safely detaching it.
"Sir, the encrypted recorder is intact," the officer reported to my father. "It has captured the entire audio of the last two hours, including the two hundred strikes and the verbal confessions of corporate fraud from Mr. Vale and Ms. Vanessa."
Adrian, still on his knees, looked up, his eyes bloodshot. "Elena... please... we’re family. I loved you! I was just stressed! The company was failing, I didn't know what I was doing!"
"You knew exactly what you were doing when you pushed me down the stairs two months ago, Adrian," I said, leaning against the medic, fighting through the searing pain in my back. "And you knew what you were doing tonight. You thought I was weak because I chose not to flaunt my father’s wealth. You thought poverty gave you the right to abuse me."
"Take them away," Dad ordered the police officers who had just entered behind his security team.
"Wait! You can't do this!" Vanessa screamed as handcuffs were slapped onto her manicured wrists. "I didn't touch her! Adrian did it! I just sat there!"
"Insolent girl," Dad sneered at her. "Incentivizing and celebrating torture makes you an accomplice. You will share the same cell. And I will personally ensure that no bail is ever granted."
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As Adrian was dragged up from the floor, he looked at me, begging with his eyes. But I turned my face away. The man I had once loved was completely dead to me. As they were escorted out in handcuffs into the flashing red and blue lights of the police cruisers, I felt the heavy, suffocating chains of the last three years finally fall away.
"Let's get you to the hospital, sweetheart," Dad whispered, his tough exterior melting into pure, fatherly heartbreak as he kissed my forehead. "It's over. You're safe now."