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“And you took no action?” the lawyer asks.
“No,” the man, Cecil, older brother of the infamous Cruella de Vil, says.
He looks old. He is only a few years older than his sister, but he looks as though he has aged a hundred years. All de Vils - well, almost all - have naturally occurring black-and-white hair - the devil’s mark, some call it. But Cecil’s is almost completely white, with only a few streaks of black. His face is lined, and his eyes are sunken, black with sorrow and grief, but hard with resolution.
“Nothing at all?” the lawyer presses. “You witnessed her treatment, which you yourself acknowledge as abusive, of her son, and in some cases even your own son. You saw evidence of physical abuse. You admit yourself to seeing the ramifications of her treatment on your nephew. You witnessed the way she treated everyone close to her, including yourself. And yet you still did nothing?”
Cecil stares solidly at him. “Yes. I did nothing.”
The crowd whispers.
From the dock, Cruella simply glares, at everyone and everything, her eyes flashing emerald fire to rival Maleficent’s.
“And why is that?”
Cecil closes his eyes. “This is - this is hard to explain. We - we’re siblings. She’s my sister. Our family is - well - complicated. But we - we always had each other. We always supported each other, we always helped each other. It’s - she was different. She's smart, she’s talented, she was singlehandedly taking over the family business. Our family - we used to be almost noble. She would have brought glory back to the family name, and I would have been right behind her, helping her, doing whatever she said. She - she’s my sister. I’m her brother. I can’t -”
He shakes his head, making a vague hand motion as though to grasp for words that don’t come. “But then there was that whole - the thing with the dogs, the Dalmatians, and she failed and just got angry at everything, lost every friend she ever had except me. I’m her brother, I can’t betray her, I even went to the Isle with her. She’s my sister, if she’s gone I don’t have anything. I tried to talk to her, but - I can’t stop her. I can’t hurt her. I love her. She’s my sister, and I chose, I always chose - “ His voice cracks. “I chose her over everything, always. Even my son.”
In the audience, Diego de Vil stares unblinking. Besides him, his cousin Carlos is twitchy, glancing from his mother to his uncle to Diego and back again.
“Yet you came forward now,” the lawyer says. “You turn your sister in, you convince her to come peacefully, you volunteer to testify.”
“Yes,” Cecil says. This is only the very last bit of his testimony. It has gone on for days. He is drawn, haggard, exhausted. He has shared every detail of life with Cruella de Vil, every interaction she ever had with her son. He has doomed his sister with his testimony, and they both know it.
“What changed?”
Cecil takes a deep breath. “The children. Our children. My son, her son. They’re the future of the de Vils, the future of the family, just - the future. I always chose her over them, but now I finally....for once in my life, I chose them. The children,” he says again.
“No further questions,” the lawyer says finally.
Cecil takes another deep breath. It is as if he has aged years in a week, a decade for every sentence that doomed Cruella to a life in prison. He looks ghastly, a century old, his eyes haunted with the betrayal of his own blood.
He turns to face the dock, where his sister sits calmly observing.
“Forgive me, Ella,” he rasps, and collapses.