Chapter 14 - The Broken Puppet
Two hours later, we were sitting in an interrogation room at the county sheriff's annex. Lily was with Elena at my house, guarded by two off-duty officers Marcus had placed on private retainer.
Behind the one-way glass, Sienna sat huddled in a rough prison blanket, shivering violently. Her manicured veneer—the radiant, treacherous beauty she had weaponized to steal my husband and destroy my home eighteen months ago—was completely disintegrated. Her cheek was bruised from the airbag deployment, her mascara ran in black gouges down her face, and her hands twitched uncontrollably.
"She blew a point-one-four on the breathalyzer," Sheriff Miller told us, crossing his beefy arms. "Open containers of vodka in the passenger seat. But that’s not the half of it. We ran the VIN on that silver sedan. It’s reported stolen from an airport parking lot in Columbus."
"Did she say why she was following me?" I asked, my voice barely louder than a whisper.
"She’s babbling about a baby," Miller said grimly. "Keeps screaming that Julian took her child and that you know where he is."
I felt the room tilt beneath my feet. Marcus instinctively placed a hand against my lower back, steadying me.
"Julian took her baby?" I repeated, looking through the glass at the pathetic wreck of the woman who had once been my maid of honor.
"According to what little sense we can pull out of her," Miller said, "Julian told her he had arranged an under-the-table adoption in Florida to pay off his debts, because he couldn't afford to raise another bastard. She claims he locked her out of their motel room three days ago and disappeared with their nine-month-old son."
A cold, sickening revulsion settled in my gut. I had hated Sienna with a burning intensity that kept me awake at night. I had dreamed of her suffering the consequences of her backstabbing greed. But hearing this—that Julian had discarded his own infant son like a piece of depreciating machinery—made me want to vomit.
"I need to speak to her," I said suddenly.
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"Clara, no," Marcus warned, his jaw clenching. "She’s unstable. She could have killed you and Lily on that highway."
"She’s a monster, Marcus," I turned to look into his dark, protective eyes. "But Julian is the devil that made her. And if Julian has a child out there, using him as a bargaining chip, I need to know where he’s hiding."
