Chapter 14 - The Twenty-Year Sentence
Six months later, Victoria Vance stood before a federal judge at the U.S. District Courthouse for her final criminal sentencing hearing.
Dressed in a drab orange inmate jumpsuit with heavy iron chains clanking around her waist, her iconic blonde hair was dull, messy, and graying, while her face looked severely aged, hollow, and completely broken.
The federal judge glared down at her from the high bench with absolute, unyielding disdain.
"Mrs. Vance, you betrayed your country's security, stole millions from wounded veterans, and publicly assaulted your own daughter out of pure, unyielding, despicable greed," the judge declared sternly. "I sentence you to twenty years in a maximum-security federal penitentiary without the possibility of early parole."
Victoria collapsed back into her wooden defense chair, weeping uncontrollably as heavy iron handcuffs locked her wrists behind her back once again.
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Nora, sitting proudly in the front row of the gallery in her crisp, newly promoted Captain's uniform, took a quiet, deep breath of pure, overwhelming peace. The long, painful nightmare was finally over.
👉 Read PART 15 to see the beautiful new life Nora and Caleb built together!
