Chapter 12
Brenda requested a meeting.
Audrey refused.
Rocco accepted one with attorneys present.
Brenda entered wearing none of the confidence she had displayed at the reception.
“What do you want?” Rocco asked.
“For you to understand.”
“No.”
Brenda looked startled.
“I’m not here to understand why hurting my daughter seemed reasonable to you.”
“Then why meet me?”
“To hear what you are willing to admit.”
Brenda looked down.
She admitted visiting Preston’s townhouse before Audrey’s first fall.
She admitted altering the runner on the rear steps.
Not enough, she insisted, to cause serious injury.
Only enough to make Audrey lose her footing.
Rocco felt his hands tighten.
He kept them beneath the table.
She admitted helping Preston monitor Audrey’s movements afterward.
She admitted calling Audrey paranoid.
She admitted the attack at the winter garden.
But when Rocco asked why she said the baby could not be born, Brenda began crying.
“My whole business was collapsing.”
Rocco stared at her.
She continued.
Preston had covered payroll twice.
Rent once.
Vendor debts repeatedly.
If his access to Moretti-connected business disappeared, Brenda believed she would lose everything.
“So you decided my grandson or granddaughter was the problem?”
Brenda wiped her face.
“I wasn't thinking like that.”
“You whispered it into my pregnant daughter’s ear.”
Silence.
Rocco leaned back.
“Don't minimize yourself now.”
That sentence landed.
Brenda had spent weeks letting Preston appear like the planner while she described herself as frightened and desperate.
But desperation did not move her hand onto Audrey’s hair.
It did not force her into the orchid stand.
May you like
She chose those things.
Understanding the pressure did not shrink the choice.
