The Trial of Vale House
Chapter 13 - The Trial of Vale House
The trial began eleven months after the slap.
Adrian and Beatrice were tried together on fraud, coercion, poisoning conspiracy, arson, identity theft, and racketeering charges. Beatrice faced an additional murder count in Evelyn’s death.
The courtroom filled before sunrise.
Adrian entered in a navy suit. Beatrice wore black. Neither looked at the other.
Prosecutors began with the penthouse video.
The jury saw Nora refuse the transfer. They heard Beatrice invoke Evelyn. They watched Adrian strike Nora and step toward her again before Victor entered.
The video then showed Victor pulling Adrian away, sending him backward against the glass table.
Adrian’s attorney argued that Victor assaulted first after entering.
The prosecutor answered with the seconds before the door opened.
Context survived editing.
Rosa testified about the service elevator. Hannah Lowe described Victor’s clinic. Engineers authenticated Evelyn’s notebooks. Dr. Pike explained the medication scheme. Marcus Vale admitted setting the archive fire after receiving Adrian’s message.
Beatrice testified under her cooperation agreement.
Adrian’s attorney called her a mother sacrificing her son.
She answered, “I protected him until protecting him threatened me. That does not make the evidence false.”
Nora took the stand for two days.
The defense asked about therapy, anxiety, and arguments in the marriage. Nora acknowledged all of them.
“Did you ever raise your voice at Adrian?”
“Yes.”
“Did you threaten to remove him from the company?”
“After finding forged transfers, yes.”
“Were you emotional?”
“I was married, grieving, frightened, and being defrauded. Emotion is not consent.”
The defense displayed the bathroom photograph from her psychiatric file.
Nora looked at it.
“That was taken after he locked the door and told me my father would die before I saw him. He labeled the result and removed the cause.”
The jury understood.
Victor testified last.
He admitted dismissing Evelyn’s warning and keeping Nora uninformed during the Swiss investigation. Adrian’s attorney used the admissions to portray Victor as manipulative.
Victor did not defend his reputation.
“I made choices that isolated both women I loved. The Vales exploited those choices. My failure does not make their poison medicine or their forged signature real.”
The trial’s most damaging evidence came from Beatrice’s phone.
A recording captured Adrian after the slap, before Victor entered.
If she still refuses, file Pike’s papers. By tomorrow she will be a patient, not a shareholder.
Adrian closed his eyes as the words played.
The case went to the jury after ten weeks.
Outside, reporters asked Nora whether she feared an acquittal.
“Yes,” she said.
“Then how can you look so calm?”
“Fear and composure are allowed to exist in the same person.”
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For years, Adrian used the appearance of emotion to decide whose truth counted.
The jury would now decide based on evidence he could no longer edit.
