Just in case she needed it in the future.
The courtroom door opened, and Jax stepped in, holding their baby in his arms. He sat back down on the row he’d claimed for their family, tucking the empty bottle back in the diaper bag. Maizie leaned over beside him and touched the baby’s forehead.
Beyond Maizie, Amara sat beside Bruce, and beside Amara were Zeyla and Ramon, their heads close. Whispering together. Since the charges had been dropped and the real murderer located, the right person—an MSI rogue operative—was inprison, Zeyla was a free woman. She seemed content to spend her freedom with family, and Ramon.
Kenna tore her gaze away from them and looked at the president, Miriam Tetherton, where she sat behind the defense table. On trial for multiple counts of murder.
Kenna said, “I have no doubt in my mind that after a lifetime of mindless service to them, years of training that most of us would consider torture and committing horrible crimes in their name…the president would resemble a member of a cult. A woman whose identity had been chosen for her, who realized in that moment that she had no rights. No future other than what they decided to give her.”
Kenna swallowed past the lump in her throat. “But she also murdered one of my dearest friends in cold blood and nearly tore more of my family from me.”
They had buried Stairns not far from his home in Colorado, and no one in the family had been the same since. Her biggest source of grief was that he hadn’t lived long enough to meet her daughter.
“You, yourself, testified that you weren’t there, Mrs. Jaxton,” the defense attorney pointed out. “How can you possibly understand the duress my client was under in that moment or at any other time in her life?”
Kenna said, “You asked for my statement, and that’s what I’ve given this court. Whether I understand her or not isn’t relevant to my testimony, but the fact is that Idoknow what it’s like to have your freedom taken from you. To believe you’ll be killed. I know what it’s like to be captured, to have a life growing inside me and not know if my captors mean my child harm—or if they intend to torture me to learn the extent of our strength.
“I survivedDominatuslike so many other people connected to them. I didn’t let them win. I didn’t let them take my choices from me or turn me into someone other than the person I am.And I don’t blame them for being who they are. They didn’t know any different, all they knew were their own selfish desires.
“That’s what put me and my family in danger. Maybe the president knew there was nothing she could do to change what they decided. There was no way to find the power to fight them alone, and so she took the fight into her own hands and destroyed lives.”
According to what Ramon had told her, in that moment, the president seemed not to care who she was shooting at. But Miriam Tetherton had taken out the top leadership in a strategic manner and then attempted to kill the other “wives” that Lief Holmberg was supposed to have had. Maizie had been caught in the middle, made a pawn—because of Kenna.
The defense attorney said, “Maybe the president believed she had no other choice, as you’ve said. She took back the power because they forced her to defend herself. Couldn’t that be true?”
Kenna shook her head. “That’s the thing about ‘taking back your power.’ Often, the vulnerable and broken person finds the strength to stand up for themselves. And sometimes, they take it too far, and they become the abuser.”
It was something she’d been talking to Maizie about recently. Now that the young woman had opened up a little about how she’d felt being a captive, almost being forced to marry a much older man once again. She didn’t want Maizie to use the strength she’d found against others like a weapon, purely so she wasn’t the vulnerable person anymore.
Kenna turned to the judge. “I don’t have anything more to say.”
“Prosecutor Hasworth?”
She rose slightly out of her chair and said, “No further questions, Your Honor,” then she sat.
He slammed his gavel down. “This court is in recess until tomorrow.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Central Medical Center
Evanston, Wyoming
“Ready?” Jax stood beside the bed, holding their baby. The little bundle of her daughter was wrapped in a pink blanket.
Kenna brushed back damp hair from her forehead and held out her arms like this was the first time she’d held her baby. Again. “Yes, definitely.”
He laid the baby in her arms. “Eliana, this is your mommy.” He settled on the edge of the bed, while the nurse and doctor bustled around on the other side of the room, giving them a moment of privacy, just the three of them.
“Eliana?”
“It means God has answered.” He touched the baby’s fuzz of hair. “Eliana Hope Banbury.”
“I think you mean Eliana Hope Jaxton.”
“She’s your daughter. Look at her. She’s already causing trouble.”
Kenna shook her head. “It almost sounds like you think that’s a bad thing.” She lifted her chin, trying to seem perturbed. She wanted a daughter who took after her and for people to consider them like two peas in a pod. But if this little one grew up to be wise and strong like her father, Kenna would have no complaints.
