My Husband Made My Son Crawl Like a Dog. My Smile Was His Death Sentence

Panic exploded.

Brooke turned and tried to run toward the kitchen doors, kicking off her high heels, but a female officer tackled her to the ground in seconds.

Brooke screamed like a banshee as the cold steel handcuffs clicked around her wrists.

"Don't touch me! I'm a mother! My baby needs me!" she wailed, thrashing against the marble floor.

"Your baby is going into state custody," the officer replied coldly, hauling her to her feet.

Victoria didn't run. She sat in her chair, paralyzed by fear and humiliation, as an officer approached her.

"Ma'am, stand up," the officer ordered.

"I... I am a Sterling," Victoria stammered, looking around at the wealthy friends she had bragged to just an hour ago.

They were all looking at her with absolute disgust. No one stepped forward to help her.

"You can't do this to me. I'm elderly!"

"The law doesn't care about your age when you torture a toddler," the officer said, forcibly pulling her up and cuffing her hands behind her back.

Then, there was Dominic.

He didn't fight. He didn't run. He just stood there, staring at the pictures of Leo's bruised body on the screen.

As the detective approached him with handcuffs, Dominic fell to his knees in front of me.

"Clara... please," he begged, tears streaming down his face, a pathetic, broken man. "I was blind. I was stupid. I didn't know how bad it was. Please, he's my son. Don't take my life away. I have nothing left!"

I looked down at him. The man I had loved. The man I had worked eighty hours a week for. The man who let my baby crawl on the floor like an animal.

"You're right, Dominic," I said softly, leaning down so only he could hear me.

"You have nothing. No money. No company. No fake son. And now, you have no freedom."

"Clara, I'm sorry!" he sobbed, trying to grab my dress.

I stepped back, disgusted.

"I told you, Dominic. The day I came home... you expected me to cry. But I smiled. Because I knew, in that exact moment, that I was going to bury you alive."

The detective grabbed Dominic by the collar and dragged him to his feet, snapping the handcuffs shut.

As they paraded the three of them out of the ballroom, pariahs in front of the entire city, I didn't feel a shred of pity.