Chapter 16 - The HearingTrent entered court wearing a navy suit I'd once bought for his birthday. He looked rested. I looked twenty-four weeks pregnant and felt a hundred years old.
Elena had warned me that seeing him could be hard. She was right. My hands went cold when he smiled across the aisle, like we were sharing a private joke.
His attorney suggested that I'd misunderstood ordinary financial arrangements. He called our arguments "marital conflict" and framed Nicole's video as a misunderstanding taken out of context.
Then Elena played the restored clip.
"Get up. Now."
"Teach her a lesson, Trent."
My own frightened whisper followed: "Alex... please help me."
Hearing it from a speaker made me feel outside my body. It also made denial harder for everyone else.
Elena presented the forged-deed concerns, Howard's ledger, and the anonymous threat. The judge separated allegations relevant to the immediate protection request from the larger financial investigation and declined to make premature findings on issues awaiting trial.
That restraint frightened me until I understood it wasn't indifference. The court was deciding what could legally be decided that day.
I testified about what happened in our kitchen. My voice cracked when I described covering my stomach with both hands. I stopped once, took a sip of water, and continued.
"Why didn't you leave earlier?" Trent's lawyer asked.
I looked at the man I'd married. "Because every time I tried, your client told me he'd take my baby, my home, and my name. And I believed him."
After the hearing, the judge extended protective measures subject to further proceedings. I was not magically free of fear. But I could breathe.
In the courthouse hallway, Detective Bell approached with a newly serious expression.
"We found a second set of records at Oak Ridge House," she said. "There are other women listed."
May you like
I stared at her. "Other wives?"
"Not all wives," she replied. "Some were tenants. Some worked for the family."
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