Chapter 6 - The Fall of House Holden
The trial of the century lasted less than three weeks. The evidence was so overwhelming, so meticulously cataloged by Rebecca and Arthur Vance, that the defense lawyers didn't even attempt to argue innocence. Instead, Mark, Agnes, and Claire turned on each other in a desperate bid to reduce their sentences.
Claire took a plea deal first. She confessed to knowing about the poisoning and detailed Mark's plans to liquidate the Moore assets. In exchange for her testimony, she was sentenced to twelve years in a maximum-security prison. As she was led away in handcuffs, she didn't look at Mark once.
Agnes, broken and stripped of her elegant clothes, wept openly on the stand. She blamed her son, claiming Mark had manipulated her into buying the black-market drugs. The judge, disgusted by her lack of accountability, sentenced her to twenty-five years without the possibility of parole. Given her age, it was a life sentence.
Finally, it was Mark’s turn. He stood before the judge, his expensive suit hanging loosely on his sunken frame.
Rebecca attended the final sentencing. She sat in the front row of the gallery, radiant and healthy, flanked by Arthur Vance and two personal bodyguards. She didn't look angry; she looked completely indifferent, as if Mark were nothing more than a piece of dust she had finally swept off her floor.
"Mark Holden," the judge declared, his gavel hovering. "For the charges of attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, corporate fraud, and spousal endangerment, I sentence you to life in prison at hard labor, with no chance of early release."
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BANG.
The gavel fell. Mark was dragged out of the courtroom, screaming Rebecca’s name, begging for forgiveness, for mercy, for a fraction of the fortune he had lost. Rebecca didn't flinch. She simply stood up, adjusted her coat, and walked out into the sunlight.
