By evening, Benedict was in Connecticut. Marcus Henderson arrived with boxes. Patricia Webb, her lead attorney, set up at the dining room table with two associates and a stack of filings. Special Agent Sarah Crawford joined by secure video from the Bureau.
Vivien, in leggings and an oversized sweater, hair unwashed, looked more dangerous to those people than she had in diamonds.
“Walk me through entrapment,” she said.
Patricia answered first. “His argument is that you deceived him as to your identity and funded opportunities that encouraged the criminal behavior later documented. It’s theatrically stupid, but we still crush it thoroughly.”
“Sarah?”
The agent’s voice came through the speaker. “Mrs. Sinclair was a cooperating witness for eighteen months. We directed documentation protocols. She did not induce criminal conduct. She preserved evidence of conduct already underway.”
Benedict slid a folder across the table. “One hundred forty-seven documented exchanges between this office, your legal counsel, and federal investigators. Time-stamped. Secure chain. Cross-referenced.”
“Good,” Vivien said. “And custody?”
Patricia’s face hardened. “Legally weak. Emotionally ugly. He’ll argue instability, manipulation, concealed identity, and a vindictive temperament.”
Ruth made a disgusted noise.
Vivien was silent for a moment, fingers resting on the edge of the table.
Then she said, “Bring in my grandmother.”
Patricia blinked once. “As a witness?”
“As artillery.”
Gloria arrived the next day wearing a camel coat and carrying enough righteous indignation to power a small city.
By the time family court convened in Stamford, the hallway was crowded with press. Flashing cameras. Breathless correspondents. Commentators who treated legal trauma like serialized entertainment. Ruth flanked Vivien on one side. Patricia on the other. Benedict moved just behind, calm as a sealed envelope.
Preston appeared on video from detention.
Gone was the sculpted confidence, the curated stubble, the expensive tailoring that had acted for years like external credibility. In beige county clothing under unforgiving institutional light, he looked eerily like the man from Trenton beneath the renamed polish. Small. Restless. Irritated by reality itself.
His attorney, Harlon Drake, was silver-haired, expensive, and full of the kind of civility certain men use the way others use knives.