Chapter 25 - Silas Kane on Trial

Silas Kane’s trial began four months later.

By then, Seattle had moved on to newer scandals.

I had not.

The courtroom was smaller than I expected.

Silas sat at the defense table in a navy suit, looking like a retired banker rather than a man accused of building a trafficking network and arranging two murders.

Gabriel testified first.

He did not look at his father when he took the oath.

The prosecutor asked about routes, shell companies, the blue ledger, and his cooperation with Agent Price.

Then the defense attorney stood.

“Mr. Kane, you despised your father, correct?”

Gabriel looked at Silas for the first time.

“No.”

The attorney paused.

“You expect this jury to believe you secretly recorded him, worked with federal agents against him, and still did not despise him?”

“I loved him.”

Silas’s face changed.

Gabriel continued.

“That was the problem.”

The courtroom went silent.

“I spent years trying to prove he was not what the evidence said he was. Then I spent more years hoping I could stop him without destroying him. I was wrong both times.”

The defense attorney moved on quickly.

Mercer testified the next day.

He described the crane brake. The payments. The false accident report. The doctor who altered Antonio Moretti’s medication. He did not ask anyone to forgive him.

That made him easier to hear.

When my turn came, my hands shook anyway.

I told the jury about the storage unit.

The blue emergency light.

The microcassette.

My father’s envelope.

The defense attorney asked, “Ms. Reyes, you have a personal relationship with Dante Moretti, do you not?”

The prosecutor objected.

The judge allowed a limited question.

I answered, “Yes.”

“Would you describe it as romantic?”

“Not in a way relevant to where my father hid a cassette.”

A few jurors smiled.

The attorney did not.

“You want Mr. Kane convicted.”

“Yes.”

“Because you blame him for your father’s death.”

“I believe the evidence shows he helped cause it.”

“That was not my question.”

“I know.”

He stared at me.

I stared back.

The recordings were stronger than any of us.

Silas’s own words filled the courtroom.

Antonio was dying anyway.

Miguel was a laborer who forgot his place.

Move the children north first.

The jury heard every one.

Then came the financial records, Mercer’s payments, Dr. Hale’s confession, the Pier 91 rescue, Camila’s stolen phone.

Camila did not testify.

Price had told her she did not need to, and prosecutors built the case without putting a sixteen-year-old survivor on display.

I was grateful for that.

Silas testified in his own defense.

Nobody expected it.

He denied ordering Miguel’s death. Denied knowingly moving people. Claimed his warehouse statements had been made under coercion and emotional distress.

The prosecutor asked, “Did you say Antonio Moretti was dying anyway?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I was angry.”

“Did you say Miguel Reyes was a laborer who forgot his place?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I was angry.”

“Did you tell Luca Neri to move children north first?”

Silas hesitated.

The whole case seemed to narrow into that pause.

“I do not recall.”

The prosecutor played the video.

Silas watched himself give the order.

Then the prosecutor asked, “Do you recall now?”

He did not answer.

The jury deliberated for two days.

Dante did not come to the courthouse for the verdict because his own sentencing was scheduled the following week and his attorney feared the cameras.

Gabriel sat beside me.

Elena sat on my other side.

When the jury returned, Silas stood.

Guilty on trafficking conspiracy.

Guilty on bribery conspiracy.

Guilty on the murder conspiracy involving Miguel Reyes.

Guilty on the murder conspiracy involving Antonio Moretti.

Guilty on obstruction.

Guilty on money laundering.

Not guilty on one lesser charge involving a route prosecutors could not tie directly to him.

The verdicts kept coming.

I expected triumph.

Instead I felt tired.

Twelve years of grief did not disappear because twelve strangers said guilty.

Gabriel began crying silently beside me.

Silas turned before marshals led him away.

He looked at his son.

Gabriel stood.

For one second I thought he might speak.

He did not.

He simply watched his father leave.

Outside the courthouse, reporters shouted questions.

I ignored them.

I walked to the waterfront alone.

At the ferry terminal doorway, someone had left a paper bag containing chicken and rice.

No note.

No name.

I sat beside it and laughed through tears.

My phone buzzed.

Dante.

I answered.

“Verdict?” he asked.

“Guilty.”

He exhaled.

Then he asked the only question that mattered.

“How are you?”

I looked at the bag beside me.

“Hungry.”

He laughed softly.

“Then eat.”

The court also heard from financial experts who traced Silas’s payments through five shell companies and two foreign accounts. None of that testimony was dramatic. It was numbers, dates, signatures, routing codes. Yet those pages did what threats had not: they gave the jury a map from intention to action.

During a recess, Gabriel stared at the binders stacked beside the prosecutor. “My father used to say paperwork was for people without power.”

Benny, sitting behind us with a cane, whispered, “Paperwork just sentenced him before the jury did.”

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Gabriel smiled faintly.

I looked at the rows of evidence and understood why my father had copied manifests instead of simply confronting Silas. Memory could be attacked. Character could be attacked. Paper, recordings, and bank transfers could be challenged too, but they did not become tired in a witness chair.