Chapter 7 - Secrets From The Grave
Chloe’s testimony was a masterclass in character assassination. For three hours, she wove a story so convincing, so full of specific, hurtful details, that even I started to question my own memory for a second.
She told the jury I’d always been “a liar and a drama queen.” That I’d made up stories about being bullied in high school to get attention. That I’d faked a suicide attempt when I was nineteen to make our mom feel guilty. That I’d “stolen” Julian from a girlfriend of hers — a lie, I’d never even met Chloe’s friends — and then spent the entire relationship complaining about him, telling her “I’m only with him for the money.”
“Clara always wanted to be rich,” Chloe said, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue — crocodile tears, I knew, but they looked real enough to the jury. “She used to say she’d do anything to get out of Ohio, to never be poor again. When she met Julian, she told me, ‘This is my ticket out. I’m gonna make him marry me, take half his money, and leave him high and dry.’ And when he found out what she was planning? When he told her he’d never marry a gold digger like her? She snapped. She started hitting herself, taking these photos of bruises, forging his name on documents, building this whole elaborate lie to destroy him. And she dragged our whole family into it. I’m only here because I can’t watch her ruin an innocent man’s life anymore.”
Margaret Price could barely contain her glee. “Thank you, Chloe. No further questions.”
Marcus Reed stood up to cross-examine, his face grim. He tried to poke holes in her story — pointed out the inconsistencies, the fact that she’d been deposited exactly seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars into her bank account from a shell company linked to Victoria two weeks before the trial, the fact that she’d posted a photo on Instagram six months earlier saying “my sister is the strongest person I know” — but Chloe had an answer for everything. The money was an “inheritance from a distant great-aunt no one knew existed.” The Instagram post was “old, from before I knew the truth.” Every contradiction was explained away with a smile and a tear.
When Chloe finally stepped down from the stand, she walked right past me without a glance. I wanted to scream at her. To ask her how she could do this. How she could sell her own sister out for money. But I knew it wouldn’t matter. Victoria had bought her. And money talked louder than blood.
The jury looked shaken. Several of them were staring at me with doubt in their eyes. The seed Margaret Price had planted was starting to grow.
We recessed for the day. As I walked out of the courtroom with Mara and Elena, the reporters swarmed us, shouting questions about Chloe’s testimony. I didn’t answer any of them. I just kept walking, my head down, until we were safely inside the SUV.
Elena was the first to speak. “That bitch,” she said, her voice shaking with rage. “How could she do that to you? Her own sister?”
“Victoria knows exactly what she’s doing,” Mara said, scrolling through her phone. “She’s been planning this for months. Found Chloe’s weak spot — her greed, her jealousy — and exploited it. If we can’t discredit her testimony before the trial ends, we might lose. Juries trust family. Especially little sisters who cry on the stand.”
I stared out the window at the passing city, numb. I’d lost my dad when I was eighteen. My mom had checked out after that, drinking herself into a stupor every night. I’d raised Chloe. I’d worked two jobs to put food on the table. I’d helped her with her homework, taken her to her first doctor’s appointment, paid for her wedding. And this was how she repaid me.
“Wait,” I said, suddenly sitting up straight. “Chloe said she had an inheritance from a great-aunt. What great-aunt? Our dad was an only child. Our mom’s only sister died in a car crash when we were kids. There is no great-aunt.”
Mara looked up, her eyes lighting up. “You’re sure?”
“One hundred percent. Our family tree is tiny. If there was a rich great-aunt out there, I would’ve known about it. I was the one who handled all the family finances after Dad died. Chloe’s lying. The money has to be from Victoria.”
“Then we prove it,” Elena said, pulling out her own phone. “I’ve got contacts in the banking world. People who owe me favors. If that money came from Victoria, we can trace it. Even if it went through a hundred shell companies. We find the paper trail, we get it admitted into evidence, and Chloe’s whole testimony falls apart. Perjury doesn’t look good to a jury.”
It took three days. Three days of Javi hacking into offshore bank accounts, of Elena calling in old favors, of Mara filing emergency motions to get the records admitted. But on the fourth day, just as the defense was about to rest their case, we got what we needed.
The seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars had come from a shell company in the Cayman Islands called Blue Horizon Holdings. Blue Horizon was owned by another shell company in the British Virgin Islands called Sunset Properties. Sunset Properties was owned by a trust. And the beneficiary of that trust?
Victoria Cross.
We had the records. The transfer dates. The IP addresses used to make the payments — traced back to Victoria’s suite at the Four Seasons. Even an email from Victoria to her accountant, saying “pay the Bennett girl the rest of the money once she testifies — make sure it can’t be traced back to us.”
Judge Whitmore allowed us to recall Chloe to the stand the next morning.
Marcus Reed was gentle at first, walking her through her testimony again, getting her to repeat under oath that the money was an inheritance from a great-aunt named Mabel who’d lived in Switzerland and died the previous year, leaving her seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash.
“Chloe,” Marcus said, once she’d finished, “do you have a death certificate for this Aunt Mabel?”
Chloe shifted in her seat. “I… I don’t have it with me. It’s in storage in Ohio.”
“Of course it is,” Marcus said, smiling. “And do you have any tax returns showing you reported this inheritance to the IRS?”
“I’m still working with my accountant on that,” she said, starting to sweat. “Inheritances are tax-free, you know.”
“Actually, they’re not,” Marcus said, and then he turned to the judge. “Your Honor, I’d like to enter into evidence three exhibits. First: the complete banking records showing the seven-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar transfer to Ms. Bennett’s account, traced directly back to a trust owned by Victoria Cross. Second: an email from Victoria Cross to her accountant, explicitly authorizing the payment as ‘compensation for testimony in the Cross trial.’ And third: official Swiss government records showing that no woman named Mabel Bennett has ever resided in Switzerland, let alone died there leaving a large estate. In short, Your Honor — Chloe Bennett didn’t inherit any money. She was paid to lie under oath. This is textbook witness tampering and perjury.”
The courtroom erupted again.
Chloe went pale. Then red. Then she stood up and started screaming — at Marcus, at me, at the judge. “It’s not true! They forged those records! They’re trying to frame me! Victoria told me you’d do this! She said—”
She stopped. Too late.
The whole courtroom had heard it. Victoria told me.
Judge Whitmore banged her gavel so hard I thought it might break. “Ms. Bennett! You will sit down and be quiet or I will hold you in contempt! Mr. Reed, your exhibits are admitted. Ms. Price — do you have any explanation for this?”
Margaret Price looked like she wanted to crawl under the table. “No, Your Honor. I… I was unaware of these payments. My clients never informed me.”
“Of course they didn’t,” Judge Whitmore said dryly. “I’ll be referring this matter to the US Attorney’s office for a full perjury and witness tampering investigation. Ms. Bennett — you are excused from this stand, but do not leave the state. You will be hearing from prosecutors. Court is adjourned for thirty minutes.”
As Chloe was led out of the courtroom by a court officer, sobbing and screaming, she finally looked at me. And in her eyes, I saw something I’d never seen there before: fear. She knew she was going to prison. She knew Victoria had used her and thrown her away. And she knew it was all her own fault.
I didn’t feel sorry for her.
The tide of the trial turned after that. The jury no longer believed anything the defense said. If they’d paid Chloe to lie, what else had they paid for? What other witnesses had been bought? What other evidence had been fabricated?
The defense rested their case the next day, their spirits broken. Margaret Price’s closing argument was half-hearted, rambling — she’d lost the jury, and she knew it.
Marcus Reed’s closing, by contrast, was a masterpiece. For two hours, he wove together every piece of evidence, every witness, every lie the Crosses had told, into one undeniable narrative of greed, corruption, and murder. He ended by holding up Arthur Cross’s old ledger — the one with the final entry about going to the FBI — and reading it aloud to the jury.
“Arthur Cross knew his son was a monster,” he said, his voice ringing through the silent courtroom. “He tried to stop him. And he was killed for it. Elena Voss tried to stop him. And she was run off a cliff and forced to spend seven years in hiding. Clara Bennett tried to stop him. And she was beaten, locked up, and almost murdered on her honeymoon. But none of them gave up. And now it’s your turn. It’s your turn to make sure Julian and Victoria Cross can never hurt anyone else again. It’s your turn to give Arthur, and Elena, and Clara — and all the other victims — the justice they deserve. Find them guilty. On all counts.”
The jury retired to deliberate at three o’clock on a Friday afternoon.
We didn’t have to wait long.
At nine o’clock that night — after only six hours of deliberation — the court clerk called us back in. The jury filed in, their faces serious. None of them would look at Julian or Victoria.
The clerk stood up. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?”
The foreman — a middle-aged schoolteacher from Queens — stood up, holding a piece of paper. “We have, Your Honor.”
“On count one — conspiracy to commit murder in the first degree of Arthur Cross — how do you find the defendant Julian Cross?”
“Guilty.”
A gasp went through the courtroom. Julian’s face went white.
“On count two — attempted murder in the first degree of Elena Voss — how do you find?”
“Guilty.”
Victoria flinched.
They went through all forty-seven counts. One by one. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Every single count. Against both Julian and Victoria. Conspiracy to commit murder. Wire fraud. Money laundering. Racketeering. Witness tampering. Conspiracy to commit murder against me. Forty-seven convictions. No acquittals. No hung counts.
When the clerk finished reading, Judge Whitmore looked at the jury. “Thank you for your service. You are dismissed.”
Then she turned to Julian and Victoria. Her face was like stone.
“Julian Cross and Victoria Cross,” she said, her voice clear and cold, “you have been found guilty of the most heinous series of crimes this court has ever seen. You killed a good man. You destroyed lives. You stole from thousands. You showed absolutely no remorse for any of it. Because of your wealth and your privilege, you thought you were above the law. You thought you could get away with anything. But you were wrong.”
She paused, looking directly at Julian. “Julian Cross — I sentence you to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, to be served in a maximum-security federal facility. You will die in prison. And when you get there, I hope you spend every single day thinking about the people you hurt.”
She turned to Victoria. “Victoria Cross — I sentence you to seventy-five years in federal prison. Given your age, this is effectively a life sentence as well. You were every bit as guilty as your son. You helped him plan murders. You helped him steal. You paid witnesses to lie. You destroyed your own family in your lust for power and money. And now you will pay the price.”
She banged her gavel one last time. “Court is adjourned.”
The marshals moved in, handcuffing Julian and Victoria. Julian screamed and fought, kicking and spitting, calling the judge a “witch” and the jury “morons” — the mask finally off, the monster revealed for everyone to see. Victoria said nothing. She just stared straight ahead, her face empty, as they led her away. She’d lost everything. Her son. Her money. Her freedom. Her legacy.
As the courtroom emptied around us, Elena pulled me into a hug. We cried — happy tears, sad tears, tears of relief, tears for all the years we’d lost. Mara clapped us both on the back, a rare smile on her face. Javi whooped so loud the bailiffs had to tell him to be quiet.
May you like
We’d won.
It was over.
