Chapter 7 - The Trial of Adrian ValeAdrian’s trial began eleven months later.
He looked immaculate.
Men accused of catastrophic crimes often spent surprising effort on tailoring.
The prosecution built the case slowly.
Vale Aeronautics debts.
Dorian’s warnings.
Remote module logs.
Adrian’s access.
Elias Kemp’s testimony.
Vivienne testified too.
That was the hardest day.
Lucian sat beside me.
Selah stayed home with Maeve.
Vivienne entered without pearls.
I noticed because for six years I had never seen her in public without them.
The prosecutor asked:
“Did Dorian tell you Adrian threatened him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you report it after Dorian died?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I was afraid.”
“Of Adrian?”
“No.”
“Of what?”
Vivienne looked toward Lucian.
“Of what the truth would do to the family.”
The prosecutor paused.
“What did silence do?”
Vivienne’s voice cracked.
“It let the wrong person remain safe.”
Adrian stared at her.
“Traitor.”
The judge immediately warned him.
Vivienne looked at her nephew.
“No.”
She said quietly.
“I was a traitor when I protected you.”
That sentence dominated the next day’s news.
Adrian testified against counsel’s advice.
He insisted he never intended death.
He said Dorian had humiliated him.
Threatened Vale Aeronautics.
Treated him as incompetent.
He wanted the helicopter rerouted to an emergency landing site where he planned to confront Dorian privately.
The prosecutor asked:
“In a storm?”
“I believed the pilots could handle it.”
“You altered navigation data midflight.”
“Yes.”
“Without informing the pilots.”
“Yes.”
“You knew the weather was dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“And you call the resulting crash an accident?”
Adrian’s confidence cracked.
“I did not tell the aircraft to fall out of the sky.”
The prosecutor looked at the jury.
“No. You simply lied to the people flying it about where the sky ended.”
Silence.
Adrian was convicted of charges related to Dorian’s death, unauthorized systems interference, fraud, obstruction and financial crimes.
The exact murder charge failed.
The jury accepted that prosecutors had not proven he specifically intended to kill Dorian.
But the remaining convictions carried decades.
At sentencing Adrian finally looked at Lucian.
“You got what you wanted.”
Lucian shook his head.
“My brother is dead.”
“You got the company.”
“No.”
Adrian looked confused.
Lucian continued.
“That’s the part you never understood.”
He pointed toward Selah, who had attended sentencing without Maeve.
“The company was never the prize.”
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“Easy to say when you’re rich.”
Lucian nodded.
“Fair.”
Then:
“But you killed a man trying to protect a company you didn’t even own.”
Adrian lowered his eyes.
The sentence was not dramatic.
May you like
It was worse.
Because it was true.
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