Chapter 225: Mr. Wit’s side.
The room was tense, the air thick with the accusations. The law enforcement officers who had been looking at Mrs. Wit with hostility had turned it on her husband’s family. They sat stiffly, their faces masks of unsaid emotions, and Claire..hers was indignation.
Sienna looked at the Wit’s, raising her brows. "I said everyone gets a turn to defend themselves. Durand, it is your turn. After hearing from you, I will examine evidence and make a judgement."
Claire rose first, the fake crystals on her dress rustling like old bells. "This is madness," she declared, her voice sharp enough to cut glass. "Bea is crazy. She has always been prone to illusions, seeing things that are not there, always smelling this or that perfume on my Durand, accusing him of infidelity all the time. She imagines conspiracies in shadows, whispers in the silence. There was no talk of rituals. We have always known that Vico would not live beyond twenty. No life stealing ritual will change that. That ritual doesn’t even work, that is why it was banned. Bea had a dream and she is insisting what she dreamed is real."
Mija interrupted. "Is it true you invited her family over to discuss a wedding?"
Claire rolled her eyes. "Yes! But that is because we want someone to remember Vico, not someone to bury him with. He may be sick, but he has some wealth to pass on, five million beast coins. Anita would inherit it, along with the apartment we bought Vico in the city. The marriage would not even be compensated and after my son passes at 20, she gets her freedom too. It is a great deal for a girl for a girl age from a poor family."
Sienna looked at the Corvinus family, Mrs. Wit’s side of the family. Her parents were holding their daughter close, crying. They didn’t seem like the kind of people who would sell their daughter for five million and an apartment. Especially when they knew how bad their older daughter had it in her own marriage. Something was wrong if you were only allowed to speak to your daughter once in a month. A daughter that was supposedly sick!
Besides, according to the old divorce file, they had stood by Bea Wit during her divorce case. So, they believed her.
The older Wit was saying gravely, "Bea has been unreliable and unstable for years. She humiliated our family with that failed divorce suit. We have tolerated her outbursts, her paranoia. You just heard her confess that she bought a gun and has been plotting to kill my son. Doesn’t that scream crazy to you? You should be arresting her. And we are going to sue her for destroying our family’s honor. To claim we would revive a banned ritual! Absurd. We don’t have that courage."
The second Wit son leaned forward, his voice dripping with disdain. "Bea is obsessed with controlling her younger sister. She is always clinging to her, always protective, as though the girl were a child. I said hello to the girl once on Durand’s birthday last year and Bea acted like I made a threat, telling her sister to stay away from me. Yes, there is talk of marriage, but that is normal. Is there a law which says a sick man cannot marry? If she didn’t want it to be her sister she could have said so without complicating it to this extent. She is doing this to justify her desire for a divorce."
The third son smirked, his tone mocking. "My sister-in-law wants freedom, that is all. Freedom from responsibility, freedom from her vows. She probably has a lover outside. So, she spun this ridiculous story and asked for the matriarch to come. Then, she made up this claim and brought up the divorce. Convenient, is it not?"
Mrs. Wit stepped in front of Durand, "There is no way she heard us whispering all the way from the bedroom. Even if she did, all she heard was talk of us preparing Vico’s assets. We were thinking of adding more in order to give Anita greater benefits. Bea is just jealous because her sister is going to come into a significant fortune.
I told Durand to divorce this jinx ages ago. She has been nothing but trouble since they met. I was against their marriage right from the start because I caught her making moon eyes at his best man on their wedding."
Mrs. Wit’s face flushed, hands trembling with fury. "You lie!" she cried. "It was my wedding, I smiled at everyone. Durand didn’t have an issue with it until you came in and put ideas into his head, telling him that he should keep an eye on me. Then you moved in for three months and started hounding me about my failure to get pregnant. You dragged me from doctor to doctor, all my results came out clean. As soon as I suggested Durand get checked out too, you slapped me and started proclaiming that I was sick." She raised her voice. "I will never allow someone like you to be my sister’s mother-in-law or her life will be ruined. You want Anita because you think she is easy to control. You will keep the assets in your family after Vico’s death, somehow."
Claire sneered. "See, making things up again. I have never laid a hand on her, and my son is in perfect health. You are the one that can’t have children because of your mental sickness. It has affected your ovaries. Who wants cubs from you anyway? They will just end up sick like you."
Mija hissed loudly, scaring everyone into silence. "We are not here to listen to this back and forth. Just state your facts and be done. As it stands now, both sides have finished." She looked at the Corvinus couple. "Were you invited here for a formal marriage proposal?"
Mr. Corvinus nodded. "We didn’t know My lady, we were told that Bea wanted to see us. That Claire wanted our family to bury past grudges and get along well from now on. The marriage proposal was unexpected. As for the ritual, I don’t know if it is true because they didn’t mention that part. But I believe Bea."
"Me too." Her mother said.
"And me." Anita whispered.
Mrs. Wit took a breath that she had been holding in. "Thank you for believing me. I know what I heard. I knew they would call me mad and I was so scared that you would not listen to me. You can’t let Anita marry into this family."
Sienna clapped her hands once. "Okay, we have heard the stories. Now, let us see which side the evidence will support."
