Chapter 5
The next two weeks were a blur.
Lawyers.
Depositions.
Police interviews.
More media attention than I’d ever wanted in my life.
People started showing up at the restaurant just to see me.
Just to support me.
Business boomed.
Lines out the door every lunch and dinner.
My staff worked double shifts, no complaints, just smiles, just “We’ve got you, Lila.”
Karen kept trying to make herself the victim.
She posted more videos.
Did more interviews.
Cried about how I was “ruining her life” and “targeting an innocent woman.”
But every time she spoke, more evidence came out.
The other three wives testified to the police.
Turned over all their texts, all their receipts, all the proof they’d saved over the years.
The bank confirmed the forged signature on the loan.
The handwriting expert said it was 100% my husband’s work, no doubt about it.
The BMW was seized by the bank within a week.
Karen had to take the bus.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t smile a little when I heard that.
My husband was out on bail.
His parents paid it.
Marge called me once, screaming, begging me to drop the charges, saying they’d pay me back every cent, just please don’t send her baby to prison.
I hung up on her.
No mercy.
Not after everything.
The preliminary hearing for the criminal charges was set for three months out.
Jake said it was open and shut.
The evidence was overwhelming.
But he warned me they’d go low.
Really low.
“They’re going to try to destroy your character, Lila.
They’re going to dig up every mistake you’ve ever made, every bad day, every time you yelled at him, every time you were too tired for sex after a 16 hour shift.
They’re going to call you a bad wife, a bad woman, a greedy gold digger who only married him for his family’s money.
You have to be ready for that.
You can’t break on the stand.
If you break, they win.”
I looked him dead in the eye.
“I let him break me once.
On our anniversary.
In my own restaurant.
I will never let him or anyone else break me again.
I’m ready.”
The first big court date was the restraining order hearing.
I had to be in the same room as him for the first time since the night of the slap.
I wore a simple black dress.
Covered the last faint yellow mark of the bruise with concealer.
Jake walked in beside me, his hand on my back, steady as a rock.
The other three wives were in the front row, there to support me.
My parents were there too.
My dad, quiet, tough, his jaw set so tight I thought his teeth might crack.
My mom, holding a tissue, her eyes red, but her back straight.
My husband walked in ten minutes late.
He was wearing a cheap suit, his hair greasy, his eyes hollow.
He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks.
Good.
Karen was right behind him, wearing a low-cut white dress, her makeup overdone, sniffling into a tissue like she was the grieving widow.
She saw me, smirked, then quickly covered it with a fake sob when she noticed the judge looking.
The hearing started.
His lawyer went first.
Stood up, all righteous indignation.
“Your Honor, this is all a sham.
My client is the real victim here.
Lila Carter is a cold, controlling, abusive woman who spent years emotionally torturing her husband.
She worked him to the bone at her restaurant, refused to give him children, refused to be a wife to him.
When he finally found the courage to seek comfort elsewhere, she concocted this entire story of assault and embezzlement to ruin him, to steal every penny he has.
We have text messages proving she threatened him.
We have witnesses who will say she was violent toward him in the marriage.”
He turned, pointed right at me.
“This woman is not a victim.
She is a predator.”
I didn’t flinch.
I didn’t look away.
I just stared straight ahead, my face blank.
Jake squeezed my hand under the table.
He stood up when it was our turn.
Calm.
Collected.
Deadly.
“Your Honor.
Let’s talk about facts.
Not lies.
Not made-up text messages.
Facts.”
He laid out every piece of evidence, one by one.
The security footage of the slap.
Clear as day.
Karen hitting me.
My husband sitting there, doing nothing.
The bank statements.
Page after page of stolen money.
The forged loan documents.
The handwriting expert’s report.
The audio recording from my apartment the night he attacked me.
His voice, loud and clear, screaming that he’d kill me, that he’d burn my restaurant down.
The testimony from the other three wives.
All of it.
One fact after another, piling up until there was no room left for lies.
When Jake was done, the judge didn’t even hesitate.
She granted a permanent restraining order.
Five hundred feet.
No contact, direct or indirect, ever again.
If he came within a block of me, my apartment, or my restaurant, he went straight back to jail, no bail.
She also ordered him to surrender his passport.
No leaving the state.
No leaving the country.
We walked out of the courtroom an hour later.
The sun was bright, warm on my face.
Reporters shouted questions.
I didn’t answer any of them.
I just looked up at the sky, took a deep breath.
For the first time in months, I didn’t feel like he was standing over my shoulder.
I didn’t feel scared to walk to my car alone.
I didn’t feel like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I felt free.
Light.
Like a weight I’d been carrying for years had finally been lifted off my chest.
Karen tried to confront me on the courthouse steps.
She ran over, screaming, calling me a liar, saying I’d paid off the judge, that I’d get what was coming to me.
A cop stepped between us before she could get within ten feet.
Gave her a ticket for disturbing the peace.
Warned her if she did it again, she’d be arrested too.
She stormed off, red-faced, humiliated, as the cameras flashed.
I watched her go.
No anger.
No satisfaction.
Just pity.
She’d spent her whole life taking from other people, building her identity on being the other woman, and now she had nothing.
No car.
No money.
No man.
Just a reputation as a homewrecker and a criminal co-conspirator.
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I almost felt bad for her.
Almost.
