Chapter 4
Back in the courtroom, Julian was no longer the confident man who had walked in earlier.
His face had gone from pale to an ugly shade of red. He kept glancing at his lawyer, who was now frantically flipping through documents, clearly unprepared for what was happening.
The judge was still staring at the scars on my body with a mixture of shock and anger.
“Mrs. Vance,” she said slowly, “are you claiming these injuries were caused by your husband?”
I nodded.
“Not all of them,” I answered. “Some were from when he pushed me down the stairs two years ago. Others were from when he used his belt on me because I refused to sign over shares in the company. But most of them…” I turned my head and looked directly at Julian, “most of them are from the nights he decided I needed to be taught a lesson.”
Julian slammed his hand on the table.
“She’s lying!” he shouted. “She’s making all of this up to get more money in the divorce!”
The judge’s expression turned ice cold.
“Mr. Vance, I suggest you control yourself immediately.”
Nora, who had been standing beside him the entire time, was no longer smiling. She was staring at Julian with wide, uncertain eyes, as if she was seeing him clearly for the first time.
I continued speaking, my voice steady.
“I stayed silent for years because I was terrified. I was scared of what he would do to me. I was scared of what he would do to our child. But I’m not scared anymore.”
I looked at Julian without any emotion in my eyes.
“Because the man standing in front of me right now is no longer powerful. He’s just desperate. And desperate men make mistakes.”
Julian’s hands were visibly shaking.
For the first time since I had known him, he looked truly afraid.
And in that moment, I realized something important.
Julian Vance had spent ten years trying to break me.
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But in the end, I was the one who had survived.
And he was the one who was about to lose everything he had spent his entire life building.
