Chapter 8 - The Ruin of the Dynasty
Ten months later, the Cook County Criminal Courthouse held the final sentencing hearing for the people who had believed a human life could be beaten into compliance.
The trial had never materialized.
Faced with forty-two counts of federal and state indictments, the undeniable 4K video footage preserved from Nicole’s phone, the sworn forensic testimony of Dr. Reed, and thirty thousand pages of embezzled corporate banking records compiled by Elena Vance, the Montgomery family had signed comprehensive, unreserved plea agreements.
The gallery was packed with three hundred citizens, journalists, and healthcare advocates.
Sitting in the front row of the victim’s section was Claire.
She looked breathtaking.
She wore an ivory wool pantsuit, her posture straight and commanding, her hair cut into a chic, shoulder-length bob that caught the courtroom lights. Her face was full of healthy color, every bruise erased, her dark hazel eyes calm, steady, and immovable as iron.
Beside her sat Alex, wearing his civilian charcoal suit, his hand resting firmly over hers.
And resting peacefully in a portable bassinet between their chairs, sleeping soundly beneath a hand-knitted lavender blanket, was ten-month-old Grace.
She weighed twenty-one pounds now, her cheeks round and rosy, two tiny bottom teeth peeking through her gums as she clutched a plush velvet bear in her chubby fists.
Judge Marcus Hall took his seat, brought his gavel down with one sharp, concussive crack, and looked down at the defense table.
The four defendants stood in chains.
Trent was gaunt, having lost fifty pounds in the state psychiatric evaluation annex at Menard. His jaw had healed crookedly, leaving him with a permanent, asymmetrical grimace; his hair was clipped down to the scalp; and his orange prison jumpsuit hung off his frame like a rag.
Beside him, Helen looked eighty years old.
Her country-club refinement had completely dissolved. She was trembling continuously, clutching her defense attorney’s arm, her eyes darting toward Claire with an expression of terrified, pathetic pleading.
Judge Hall adjusted his reading glasses.
“In thirty-two years on this bench,” Judge Hall began, his voice ringing off the stone walls like an executioner’s drum, “I have rarely encountered an exhibition of domestic cruelty, familial vanity, and calculated cowardice as revolting as that presented in this record. You looked at a pregnant woman carrying an innocent life and saw only a financial obstacle to be crushed with a wooden stick.”
He looked at Trent Montgomery.
“Trent Montgomery, for the crime of Attempted Murder in the First Degree and Aggravated Domestic Torture, you are hereby sentenced to thirty-six years in the Department of Corrections at the Stateville Maximum Security Facility, to be served at eighty-five percent before the possibility of parole.”
CRACK.
Trent let out a choked, broken sob, his knees giving out as the two burly bailiffs caught him by the shoulders, holding his limp body upright.
“Helen Montgomery: for the crime of Solicitation to Commit Grievous Bodily Harm and Aiding and Abetting Domestic Torture, you are sentenced to twenty-two years at the Logan Correctional Center.”
CRACK.
Helen shrieked, collapsing into her seat, burying her face in her shackled hands as the reality of two decades in a concrete cell crushed her lungs.
“Richard Montgomery: for the crime of Criminal Facilitation of a Class X Felony and Obstruction of Justice... fourteen years at the Dixon Correctional Facility.”
CRACK.
“Nicole Montgomery: for the crime of Deprivation of Civil Rights and Unlawful Recording and Distribution of Domestic Torture... eight years at the Decatur Correctional Center.”
CRACK.
Judge Hall looked at the defense table one final time, his voice rising with unyielding judicial finality.
“Furthermore, under the provisions of the Civil Wrongful Injury Restitution Act, this court orders the immediate, total liquidation of all real property, corporate equity, personal luxury assets, and financial accounts held under the Montgomery name.
The family’s residential properties, their vehicle fleets, and their liquidated corporate stock—totaling sixteen point four million dollars—are hereby seized and transferred into an irrevocable, court-supervised educational and living endowment established solely for the lifetime benefit of Grace Bennett.”
Judge Hall brought his rosewood gavel down for the final time.
CRACK.
“Court is adjourned. Remove the prisoners.”
Four sets of heavy steel handcuffs clattered against the wood.
As Trent was dragged past the gallery partition by two armed deputies, his orange jumpsuit soaked with tears and sweat, he turned his swollen, ruined face toward Claire.
He looked at her.
He looked at the woman he had kicked onto a kitchen floor.
He looked at the daughter he had tried to murder, sleeping peacefully in her bassinet beneath the soft lavender blanket.
Claire did not look away.
She did not flinch. She did not scream.
She looked at him with the cool, absolute detachment of a woman looking at a pile of dead autumn leaves being swept into the gutter.
The heavy steel holding door clanged open, swallowed the four convicts in chains, and slammed shut with a sharp, metallic ring that echoed through the marble corridors outside.
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The nightmare was finished.
The debt was paid in full.
