Chapter 8 - The Public Reckoning
On Wednesday morning, Beatrice Lobo was brought before a magistrate for her formal bail hearing.
Victoria did not send a lawyer; she went in person, taking me with her. We walked into the crowded courtroom surrounded by six armed federal marshals whose presence had been personally requisitioned by the governor’s office.
The gallery was packed with the very relatives who had laughed around the dining table on Sunday. Cousins, aunts, business partners—all of them sat in suffocating silence, their eyes darting nervously toward Victoria, terrified of being singled out.
Beatrice sat at the defense table in an orange prison jumpsuit, her bleached hair unwashed, her face pale and sunken without her heavy makeup. Beside her sat Matteo, looking gaunt, his eyes hollow and terrified.
When Beatrice saw me enter—walking upright, dressed in an immaculate charcoal-gray maternity dress, flanked by the woman whose name ruled the city's financial underworld—her jaw dropped.
"Your Honor!" Beatrice's defense attorney scrambled to his feet. "We request reasonable bail. My client is a respected pillar of the community, a patron of the arts—"
"The Commonwealth opposes bail in its entirety," the prosecutor interrupted, stepping forward with an icy, clinical authority. "We submit into evidence high-definition security camera footage retrieved from the Lobo estate's private server. The footage clearly depicts the defendant brandishing a deadly weapon, swinging it with full force at the abdomen of a pregnant woman, accompanied by verbal declarations of intent to cause an abortion."
A collective gasp swept through the courtroom gallery. Beatrice’s cousins shrank into their seats.
"Furthermore," the prosecutor continued, "we have uncovered financial wire transfers showing Mrs. Lobo attempting to move four million dollars into un-extraditable offshore accounts within forty minutes of the assault. She is a severe flight risk and an unrepentant danger to society."
The judge didn't even hesitate. The gavel struck the wooden block with a sound like a gunshot.
"Bail is denied. The defendant will be remanded to the maximum-security correctional facility pending trial."
May you like
As two female bailiffs moved forward to handcuff Beatrice's hands behind her back, she lost all composure. She lunged toward the railing, screaming hysterically: "Lucia! You ungrateful little bitch! You were nobody! You lived in a three-room apartment! Tell them to stop this! Matteo, tell her!"
Matteo didn't move. He sat frozen, staring down at the wooden table just as he had stared at his shoes while his mother tried to murder our child.
