Chapter 6: The Scorched Earth
Chapter 6: The Scorched Earth
The civil lawsuit hit the Chicago legal community like a nuclear bomb. We didn't just sue Preston for assault and battery. Marcus drafted a multi-million dollar suit naming Richard and Carolyn Bennett for intentional infliction of emotional distress, conspiracy to conceal a felony, and accessory after the fact.
My father tried to strike back. He hired a sleazy crisis PR firm to leak stories about me to the tabloids. They tried to paint me as a jealous, bitter sister who was broke and looking for a payday. They even tried to imply Sophie had behavioral issues at school.
But Marcus had anticipated it.
We held a press conference. I sat before a dozen news cameras, holding Sophie's hand. She wore a little beanie to cover the shaved patch of hair and the stitches on her head. I didn't yell. I didn't cry. I spoke with the terrifying calmness of a mother who had nothing left to lose.
"My family chose to protect a violent man over an innocent child," I told the cameras. "They thought they could buy the truth. But the truth is not for sale."
The public backlash against my parents was instantaneous. My mother, who lived for country club luncheons and charity galas, was suddenly blacklisted. Her "friends" stopped returning her calls. The country club quietly asked them to suspend their membership due to the media circus.
Meanwhile, the discovery phase of the civil suit yielded pure gold. Marcus subpoenaed Preston's financial records to determine damages. What he found was staggering.
Preston hadn't just been losing money; he was drowning in illegal gambling debts. And my father had been quietly diverting funds from a family trust—a trust set up by my late grandfather meant to be split evenly between Preston and me—to cover Preston’s tracks. My father had literally stolen millions from me to keep his golden boy afloat.
May you like
"We don't just have them on assault and conspiracy now," Marcus told me over coffee, grinning like a shark. "We have Richard on financial fraud and embezzlement. If he doesn't settle the civil suit, I'm handing these documents over to the FBI."
The walls were closing in on the Bennett empire, and I held the remote control to the bulldozer.
