I visited Derek once before trial, not because I missed him but because I needed to look him in the eyes and feel the truth in my body, and behind the glass in the visiting room he looked smaller than I remembered, stripped of the power he wore like a suit. He leaned toward the phone and said, “Why did you do it? We could’ve made a deal—I’m your brother,” and I stared at him long enough to feel the grief settle, then answered softly, “That’s exactly why—because you were my brother,” and when he narrowed his eyes as if he still didn’t understand, I finished, “And you betrayed the only sacred thing we had left.”
The trial lasted three months, and the recordings were admissible because they were made in a place where I had a reasonable expectation of privacy—my hotel room—documenting a crime in progress, and their lawyers tried every trick: Ethan claimed he loved me and blamed Derek, Brianna cried and said she “didn’t understand the context,” Derek insisted the audio was manipulated, but their own voices condemned them.