Her Parents Gave Her Away Like She Was Worthless

The Law Courts of New Westminster sat like a brutalist fortress of raw concrete, red brick, and dark tinted glass overlooking the muddy, commercial expanse of the Fraser River.

At 8:30 AM on Monday morning, the public gallery of Courtroom 101 was packed to capacity with maritime labor leaders, waterfront developers, investigative journalists from the Vancouver Sun and The Province, and dozens of longshoremen from Local 502 who had gathered to witness the final legal battle for the Fraser River container terminals.

Sitting at the primary petitioner's table was Vanessa Sterling.

She wore an impeccably tailored navy wool skirt suit, an eight-thousand-dollar camel-hair overcoat draped across her shoulders, her blonde hair styled into a severe, aristocratic chignon that shouted generational wealth. Beside her sat three senior litigation partners from Fasken Martineau, their legal briefs stacked four feet high on the mahogany table.

Sitting in the front row of the gallery, wearing an ill-fitting gray suit that smelled of dry-cleaning chemical solvent and nervous sweat, was Bogdan Novak.

His spectacles were smudged; his hands were shaking with a violent, rhythmic tremor as he clutched a leather portfolio containing his forged bankruptcy filings. Beside him sat his wife, Marta—her thin face pale as bone, her lips pressed into a tight, bloodless line of practiced silence, her cold hands locked tightly around her designer handbag.

The heavy double oak doors at the rear of the courtroom swung open with a smooth, authoritative glide.

Every head in the room turned in unison.

Stepping through the threshold was Christian Duras.

He wore an impeccably tailored charcoal three-piece suit of English wool, his overcoat unbuttoned, his dark hair brushed back from his broad forehead, his face carved from cold, unyielding granite.

Walking on his right, dressed in an elegant, high-collared dark green wool dress that accentuated her tall, sovereign frame, her dark hair swept into an unyielding braid that exposed the complete, pale ridge of her burn scar to the fluorescent glare of the bench...

Was Seraphine Novak.

And walking between them, holding Seraphine’s left hand with absolute, fearless trust, was ten-year-old Julian Duras, dressed in his navy school blazer, carrying a small leather document case under his arm.

Bogdan Novak’s breath hitched in his throat. He half-rose from his pew, his mouth opening in an involuntary, terrified gasp as he saw his daughter walking down the center aisle beside the sovereign lord of the waterfront.

Seraphine did not look at him.

She did not look at her mother.

She walked past the first row of pews with the slow, measured, majestic cadence of a woman who had walked through an open oven and emerged as pure, tempered iron.

She stopped at the respondent's table, pulled out the heavy oak chair, and sat down beside Christian Duras.

Chief Judge Evelyn Harrison entered from the chambers, her black silk robes rustling, her seventy-two-year-old face an unreadable mask of judicial severity as she struck her gavel against the sounding block with a single, concussive CLACK.

"Court is in session," Judge Harrison announced, her deep, authoritative voice cutting through the murmur of the gallery like a diamond scribe on glass.

"In the matter of The Application of Vanessa Sterling for the Appointment of Special Guardianship over the Minor Heirs of the Estate of Elena Duras."

Judge Harrison lowered her reading glasses, looking down from the elevated bench directly onto Vanessa Sterling.

"Miss Sterling, your counsel has submitted four emergency motions alleging custodial unfitness, criminal association, and the unlawful detention of the minor heirs by a third-party domestic employee. Are you prepared to present your primary witness?"

Vanessa’s lead counsel stood up smoothly, adjusting his silver tie. "Yes, My Lady. We call Mr. Bogdan Novak to testify regarding the unlawful extortion and commercial transfer of his daughter, Seraphine Novak, by the respondent, Christian Duras."

Bogdan stood up from the gallery, smoothing his jacket with trembling fingers, taking three hesitant steps toward the witness box.

"Before Mr. Novak takes the oath, My Lady," Christian Duras’s senior counsel, David Sloan, stood up from our table, his voice carrying the calm, terrifying finality of a guillotine blade dropping in its tracks.

"The respondent moves for an immediate evidentiary exclusion and an unsealed criminal referral under Section 433 of the Criminal Code of Canada."

Judge Harrison’s eyes narrowed behind her spectacles. "On what grounds, Mr. Sloan?"

David Sloan didn't answer with rhetoric.

He nodded to Seraphine.

Seraphine stood up from the table.

She did not approach the witness box. She walked to the center of the well, between the two counsel tables, holding the certified arson dossier from the Fire Commissioner in her right hand.

She turned her face.

Not toward the judge.

Toward the man standing by the witness gate—her father.

"On the grounds, My Lady," Seraphine said, her voice clear, rich, and possessing an unnatural, terrifying density that made every reporter in the press box stop their pens, "that the proposed witness, Bogdan Novak, is the primary target of an active, unsealed indictment for premeditated aggravated arson and the attempted capital murder of his twelve-year-old son, Thomas Novak."

The courtroom went completely, terrifyingly airless.

Bogdan Novak stopped dead in his tracks.

His face drained of every drop of color, turning the sickly, translucent shade of wet chalk. His spectacles slipped from his nose, clattering loudly against the linoleum floorboards.

Marta Novak let out a sharp, bird-like shriek from the gallery, her hands flying to her mouth as she slumped backward into the wooden pew like an empty suit of clothes.

Vanessa Sterling surged to her feet, her hands slamming onto the mahogany table, her manicured fingers clawing at the wood. "My Lady! This is an outrageous ambush! This is a domestic dispute manufactured by an un-credible, disfigured girl—"

"Silence!" Judge Harrison’s gavel struck the sounding block with the force of an artillery shell.

CRACK.

Two armed tactical constables of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police stepped through the side doors of the courtroom, their golden badges gleaming beneath the fluorescent lights, their handcuffs held at the low-ready.

Inspector James Reyes walked straight down the center aisle, stopped two feet from Bogdan Novak, and pulled a certified warrant from his coat.

"Bogdan Novak," Inspector Reyes announced, his voice thundering through the vaulted room. "You are under arrest for aggravated arson, insurance fraud under the Criminal Code, and two counts of attempted murder in connection with the fire at 4412 Hastings Street."

Bogdan’s knees buckled.

He didn't shout. He didn't cite his church compact. He collapsed onto the linoleum floor, weeping with the raw, slobbering terror of an animal that had finally seen the jaws of the trap snap shut around his throat.

Seraphine looked down at him.

She didn't sneer. She didn't spit. She didn't look at him with hatred.

She looked at him with the cold, absolute indifference of a woman looking at a dead autumn leaf that had fallen onto a clean stone floor.

"You told my mother that I was damaged, Father," Seraphine whispered, every word falling with the unyielding weight of an iron anchor dropped into deep water.