Chapter 6 - Viral Justice
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By six o'clock the following morning, the world had already learned what happened beneath the crystal chandeliers.
I sat at my kitchen counter in my physical training gear, drinking black coffee while my tablet screen flashed relentlessly.
A retired Master Chief from the gala had posted a twenty-two-second video clip on Facebook at midnight.
The caption read: "Trust-fund parasite assaults Navy Captain Claire Vance at military gala. Watch the whole room stand up."
The video was devastatingly clear.
It captured Patricia’s haughty sneer as she boasted that Derek had "the instincts of a warrior."
It captured Derek reaching for my uniform, me swatting his hand away, and then the sickening crack of his palm striking my face.
And then, it captured the terrifying, synchronized movement of four hundred military officers rising from their chairs in absolute silence.
The video ended with Master Chief Keating barking for security as Derek’s face dissolved into absolute panic.
In less than six hours, the post had garnered over two million shares and thirty thousand comments.
By eight in the morning, major news networks were replaying the footage on national morning shows.
The comment sections were a raging furnace of public condemnation.
"Who is this coward hitting a female naval officer?" one comment read.
"This man needs to spend five years breaking rocks in a federal penitentiary," another posted.
"Look at the mother smiling right before he did it! Disgusting, entitled monsters!"
Local civic groups in Norfolk began scrubbing Derek Holloway’s name from their donor registries before breakfast was over.
The country club where Patricia had hosted weekly bridge luncheons for thirty years held an emergency board meeting at dawn.
By nine o'clock, their president issued a formal statement revoking Patricia Holloway’s membership effective immediately.
Meanwhile, forty miles away, Derek was waking up on a concrete slab inside the Norfolk City Jail.
His cell was ten feet by eight feet, with a rusted stainless-steel toilet and fluorescent lights that buzzed like angry hornets.
He was still wearing his ripped dress shirt and stained tuxedo trousers, stripped of his expensive belt and custom leather shoes.
His cellmate was a three-hundred-pound man awaiting trial for armed robbery who was currently glaring at Derek from the top bunk.
"Hey, pretty boy," the man grunted, leaning over the metal railing.
"You're the clown on the morning news who slapped that Navy Captain, ain't you?"
Derek pulled his knees to his chest and pressed his back against the freezing cinderblock wall.
"My lawyer will have me out of here in an hour," Derek whispered, his voice trembling with sheer terror.
"My family owns this county."
The cellmate laughed, a deep, rumbling sound that made Derek’s stomach twist into painful knots.
"You don't own nothing in here, little man."
Down the hall, the heavy steel door clanged open, and a corrections officer with a clipboard stopped outside the bars.
"Holloway, Derek," the guard called out flatly.
Derek scrambled to the bars like a drowning rat clawing for air.
"Is my mother here with my bail?" Derek asked desperately.
"Did she post the bond?"
The guard looked at him with sheer disgust and spat a toothpick onto the concrete floor.
"The Commonwealth Attorney just upgraded your charges to assault and battery on an active-duty military commander."
"The magistrate denied bail pending your formal arraignment."
"You're staying right here until Monday morning, hero."
Derek gripped the cold iron bars until his knuckles turned purple, screaming into the empty corridor.
"You can't do this to me!"
"Call my mother!"
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"Call Patricia Holloway!"
The guard turned his back and walked away, letting the heavy iron security gate slam shut with a deafening bang.
