Chapter 6 - Retribution in Broad Daylight
The television screen cut directly to crystal-clear 4K security footage with razor-sharp audio.
There was no music. No commentary. Just the stark, unvarnished truth playing out before eighty million viewers nationwide.
The camera showed the lavish Morrison dining room. It showed Diane Morrison standing over the pregnant Cassidy, holding a metal bucket filled with murky, freezing dishwater. The audio picked up Diane’s sneering voice with horrifying clarity:
*“Look on the bright side... at least you finally took a bath.”*
The camera captured the sound of the freezing water splashing violently over Cassidy’s head, soaking her hair, her clothes, her swollen belly. It captured Brendan Morrison throwing his head back in a burst of cruel, mocking laughter, while Jessica Miller giggled beside him, remarking on the cheap clothes not touching the expensive linen.
Then, the broadcast cut to a side-by-side split screen showing Brendan’s podcast interview from two hours earlier—where he claimed Cassidy had poured water on his mother—contrasted directly against the real video of his mother assaulting a seven-month pregnant woman.
The news anchor returned to the screen, her voice filled with absolute revulsion.
“Following the release of this footage by the Sterling Horizon Group, the District Attorney’s Office has announced immediate grand jury indictments against Diane Morrison for felony aggravated battery of a pregnant victim and domestic endangerment. Furthermore, federal prosecutors have issued an arrest warrant for Brendan Morrison for grand larceny, wire fraud, and the embezzlement of over two point four million dollars in corporate assets.”
The anchor adjusted her papers, looking straight into the camera.
“Additionally, Jessica Miller was taken into federal custody thirty minutes ago at O’Hare International Airport while attempting to board a flight to the Cayman Islands with over three hundred thousand dollars in undeclared jewelry purchased with stolen corporate funds. Sources confirm she is currently cooperating fully with federal prosecutors against Brendan Morrison.”
Diane let out a bloodcurdling scream from the motel bed, her hands tearing at her hair. “No! Turn it off! Turn it off!”
Before Brendan could even lunge for the television remote, the cheap wooden door of their motel room exploded inward with a deafening crash.
“FEDERAL AGENTS! ON THE GROUND! BOTH OF YOU, DOWN ON THE GROUND NOW!”
Flashlights flooded the dingy motel room with blinding white light. Four tactical officers in full body armor rushed through the doorway, weapons raised, followed by two plainclothes federal marshals.
Brendan fell to his knees on the stained carpet, his hands trembling violently above his head, weeping uncontrollably. “Wait! Wait! It was a mistake! She set me up! Cassidy set me up!”
A federal marshal stepped forward, grabbed Brendan’s wrists, and snapped heavy steel handcuffs around them with a violent, final *click*.
“Brendan Morrison, you have the right to remain silent,” the marshal recited with mechanical coldness, hauling him to his feet. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
Across the room, two female officers were lifting Diane from the bed, snapping cuffs behind her back as she shrieked obscenities, kicking and spitting like a caged animal. Her chinchilla coat fell into the dirty puddle on the motel floor, trampled beneath the heavy tactical boots of the arresting team.
As Brendan was pushed out into the neon-lit motel parking lot, he saw at least six news vans already parked along the perimeter, their satellite dishes raised, their cameras pointed directly at his face.
The very media attention he had summoned with his lies had arrived to broadcast his total, unmitigated disgrace to every corner of the planet.
Across the street, parked in the shadows beneath a row of weeping willows, sat a black armored Maybach.
Through the tinted glass of the rear window, Brendan caught a brief, fleeting glimpse of Cassidy.
She was looking at him through the glass. Her face was completely calm, devoid of hatred, devoid of triumph. She looked at him the way one looks at a shattered piece of trash being swept into a dustpan.
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Beside her, Frank Vance rolled up the partition window, and the sleek black vehicle pulled smoothly away into the rain, leaving Brendan to the flashing red and blue lights of his prison transport.
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