Chapter 9
The next day,
the local news picked up the story.
Frank was a prominent real estate developer in the city.
His arrest was public record.
The mugshot was glorious.
Frank looked furious,
disheveled,
and humiliated.
His hair was messed up.
His tie was gone.
He looked exactly like the thug he was.
Alice bought a newspaper just to look at the front page.
"Local Developer Arrested on Assault Charges,"
the headline read.
She cut the article out.
She pinned it to her bulletin board in her home office.
A souvenir.
Patricia went into damage control.
She paid thousands of dollars to a PR firm.
She tried to spin the story.
She claimed Frank was defending his home from a violent intruder.
She implied Alice was dangerous.
But the PR firm could not stop the rumors.
The country club suspended Frank's membership pending the trial.
His business partners started pulling out of deals.
Banks called in his loans.
The empire was crumbling,
and it only took forty-eight hours.
Marcus called Alice that afternoon.
"They are offering a settlement,"
Marcus said,
sounding amused.
"Frank's criminal defense attorney reached out.
They want to handle this quietly."
"What is the offer?"
Alice asked.
"They will give you the townhouse free and clear.
They will pay your legal fees.
And they will give you a lump sum of two hundred thousand dollars."
Alice laughed.
"In exchange for what?"
"In exchange for you dropping the criminal charges,
signing an NDA,
and publicly stating that the incident was a mutual misunderstanding."
"Tell them no,"
Alice said immediately.
"Tell them I wouldn't take ten million dollars to let him walk free."
"I already told them,"
Marcus chuckled.
"I just had to present the offer to you legally.
I told their lawyer that we have the ring camera footage."
Alice’s eyes lit up.
"You told them?"
"Yes.
The defense attorney was completely blindsided.
Frank had lied to his own lawyer.
He told his lawyer there was no video."
Alice could imagine the chaos in that office.
"What happened?"
"The lawyer demanded to see it.
I sent him a watermark copy.
He called me back five minutes later.
He said he is advising Frank to plead guilty to avoid prison time.
But Frank is stubborn.
He wants to fight it."
"Let him fight it,"
Alice said.
"I want him in court.
I want it on the public record."
"We will get there,"
Marcus promised.
Meanwhile,
Briana was dealing with her own fallout.
She had gone back to Facebook to defend her father.
She posted a long,
rambling video crying about how unfair the justice system was.
She called Alice a gold digger.
That was her mistake.
Alice did not respond on Facebook.
She responded with a cease-and-desist letter.
Delivered by courier.
Directly to Briana at her college campus.
In the middle of her sociology class.
Briana had to sign for it in front of fifty students.
The letter threatened a massive defamation lawsuit if she spoke Alice's name again.
Briana deleted all her social media accounts that night.
The family was being dismantled,
May you like
piece by piece.
And Alice was holding the sledgehammer.
