Chapter 58 Leila
Leila
It makes sense she’d time her revenge so it’d coincide with the biggest case of my career. There’s no way to stop it now. It’s coming.
Soon. That’s what she’s telling me with this note. She’s closing in on me.
I have to secure an acquittal for Jack first. Then I’ll deal with her. I can’t let him down.
When I arrive home, the house is cold. I feel sick but I’m starving. Everything in my body is telling me there’s an imminent threat, but I’m also expected to save a man’s life via an intelligent, well-crafted closing speech in the next seventeen hours.
Usually, when conducting a trial, you work backward; figure out the main points you want to tell a jury in your closing speech, then work out how to get there by eliciting that evidence throughout the trial. You can prepare the bare bones of a closing submission before the trial even starts.
Usually.
This case has been monumentally difficult to prepare. The speech will keep me up all night and will have to be delivered perfectly in court against the backdrop of the time bomb ticking quietly in my ear, not knowing when—or where—she is going to strike.
One thing I can’t work out is this: she’s always had enough ammunition to destroy my life. Always. That’s why the timing of everything now makes me nervous. She’s clearly waited so the wound would be so crushing, so intimate, I’d never recover.
I get that.
But the recent messages also point toward Jack. They all seem to be connected to his case. How could that possibly be?
Then a thought flashes through my head, so vile I physically have to close my eyes to get rid of it.
She wouldn’t. Could she?
It can’t be that. Please don’t let it be that.
As hellish, unpalatable thoughts begin to consume my brain, my breathing becomes rapid and I stand, leaving my case papers and laptop on the dining-room table where I’ve set up to write my speech. It will have to wait.
Always be prepared for things to go tits up.
I need to check something.
As I’m about to leave the house, Julian arrives. He dumps his bag onto the floor in the hallway and walks into the dining room. He says nothing, just stands with his hands in his pockets, looking at me.
“What?” I ask, barely able to entertain whatever he has to say. I have bigger things to worry about.
“Very convenient you had the CCTV of Quinn to hand over after Millman’s explosive revelations.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I say, putting my shoes on.
“You knew he’d met Jack before. You didn’t raise it with him initially.”
“The CCTV only became relevant to my client’s defense following his evidence.”
“And you found out about this mystery woman the same time as the rest of us.”
“What’s your problem?” I snap at him.
“It all just ran a bit too…”
“What?”
“Smooth for my liking.”
I laugh, raising my eyebrows. He knows I’ve done something sneaky; it takes one to know one.
“Smooth? Yes, a bit like how Quinn worked out on his own that Jack had been harassing him, which suddenly gave Anton a motive for being there that night. As you say, smooth.”
God forbid I question his professional integrity.
“You know, Julian, one of the first things you taught me was how to use the opposition’s own witnesses against them.
I was always taught—you always taught me—it’s much more powerful than using your own.
You know what’s even better than that? When you’re the one who dictates whether they’re used at all. ”
The penny drops. He understands what’s happened. It’s not in his nature to show emotion on his face, but even he can’t hide the anger that’s swelling in his eyes right now.
“What did you call Quinn, Julian? A ‘smoking gun’? Only because I pulled the trigger and led you straight to him. I needed him in that witness box. You shouldn’t have underestimated me.”
Julian is not used to getting played in trials. He’s usually the one pulling the strings. But I’ve outsmarted him here. He will make me pay for it, but right now, I couldn’t care less.
“One murder trial in and you think you’re King’s Counsel?” he says, mocking me. “It takes more than flashy tricks to be good at this, darling.”
“Oh! But I thought it was all about the drama? Isn’t that what you said?”
He’s seeing a side of me he isn’t used to, and he’s unsure how to react. He stands, watching me, jaw muscle flickering.
“You know what I think?” I tell him. “I think you don’t like that your wife might actually win this trial. This hopeless trial.”
I don’t believe I will, but I’m enjoying provoking him. What have I got to lose? It’s all going to come crashing down soon enough because of her anyway.
“There’s no way the jury will buy this nonsense,” he scoffs. “This woman? I mean, who is she?”
“I know who she is,” I say confidently, walking toward him.
“You do?” he asks, with a genuine air of intrigue in his voice. “Who?”
I drag the silence out for a few seconds, allowing his face to rest fully so I can see his reaction when I say it.
“Demi Vernon.”
He seems taken aback at the suggestion but doesn’t say anything. I think he’s trying to work out if I’m serious or not. I watch his face; it stiffens slightly.
“Demi?” he repeats, his face now animated, as though he’s recovered and is back to full function again. “Having an affair with a criminal? Why on earth would you think that?”
“She fits the bill—married, and I can imagine she and Chester have a toxic relationship. You wouldn’t want to mess with Chester, would you?
The weekend Anton died, she was acting in the strangest way at his birthday drinks.
Asking about the case and, I know this sounds bizarre, but she avoided you at the party.
Actively moved away from you whenever you were near her. Isn’t that weird?”
“That’s what you’re basing this on?”
“Not quite,” I shoot back. I don’t take my eyes off him. “Chester told me months ago he suspected she’d been having an affair.”
“He said that?”
“Yes. He didn’t know who it was, but you know him—he doesn’t let things go. He said he wouldn’t be made a fool of. Said when he found out who it was, he’d make their life hell.”
“This is all coincidence, surely.” The mean tone in his voice moments ago has vanished. He’s trying to steer me away from this, just as I knew he would.
“And now she’s twenty weeks pregnant, which means the baby was conceived around the time of the murder. Took her months to tell him. I bet it’s not even his…Chester has doubts, too. He’s not stupid.”
“So, what are you saying? That Demi is carrying Jack Millman’s child? Can you hear yourself?”
I shrug my shoulders and laugh.
“Well, it’s either his…or yours.”
It doesn’t happen often. In fact, I don’t think it ever has before now, but Julian Kesler has nothing to say.
Nothing.
He takes a few seconds to recalibrate, aware he needs to talk his way out of this very carefully.
“Jesus Christ, Leila!” He fake-laughs. “Your paranoia is something else! I’m sleeping with Chester’s wife now?”
“It’d be easier if you just admitted it. Don’t make me get the evidence out.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“OK.” I sigh. “I’ll show you.”
I get my phone from my bag and open the photos app.
Scrolling through, I select the screenshots I airdropped from Demi’s WhatsApp chat straight to mine, which had been safely in my handbag the whole night, not at Audrey’s.
Theatrically clearing my throat before I begin, I read them out, occasionally looking up at him—my husband—who is grasping for something, anything, to say in this moment.
I wasn’t stupid enough to leave this up to chance; I took a screenshot of the number beside the messages he sent. He’d obviously removed her as a contact to communicate to her, rather brutally, that it was over. A common tactic he used to employ back when he was single, before we started dating.
“Did you think I wouldn’t work it out?” I ask.
Even now, with his wife calling out his infidelity, I can tell Julian is thinking what a massive inconvenience this is, for me to accuse him the night he has to write the best closing speech of his career.
Let’s be honest, neither of us has time for this bullshit.
“It was nothing,” he says robotically.
“Nothing?” I parrot back to him, just to ensure I’ve heard correctly. “Is that what you’d really call this? Nothing?”
“After six years, Leila? Really?” he asks, his tone aggressive. “You’re prepared to throw our marriage away over this? I don’t want anything to do with her.”
My mind plays back to the time I came downstairs and heard him on the phone.
“That’s who you were talking to that night, isn’t it? I heard you, in the kitchen.”
“I’ve made it very clear to Demi that it’s over. I don’t love her. I feel nothing for her, and she can’t prove the kid’s mine anyway.”
“It’s irrelevant whether you love her or not and, trust me, Julian, if she says it’s yours, it will be,” I say firmly.
I’m not exactly Demi’s biggest fan in this moment, but his insistence on simply discarding her—the woman carrying his child—makes me sick.
“Tell me, Julian, what was it I didn’t do?
Because I think I’ve been a pretty good wife. ”
“Jesus, Leila!” he shouts, raising his arms into the air, exasperated. “It had nothing to do with you! It was a mistake. She was a mistake.”
No sincere apology, no begging for forgiveness, no remorse. The entire thing is a chore for him. He’s never taken accountability for anything in his life.
“And now you’re going to pay for it. I wonder if your divorce solicitor will do you a ‘Buy One Get One Free’ deal.”
My body reacts as I say it. My hands start shaking and a lead weight lands in my stomach. Adrenaline shoots through my veins at lightning speed.
Julian looks at me, confused. I know what he’s doing, making me feel I’m overreacting. He’s good at this.
“Why do we have to get divorced?” Julian asks in a quiet voice, frowning at me as if I’ve said the most nonsensical thing in the world.
I swallow hard. My heart races.
“You must be joking,” I reply calmly.
“Nobody needs to know.”
This was always going to be his reaction. Be strong.
“I know. I’ll never be able to trust you again.”
He slowly walks over to the dining table and pulls out one of the chairs. Taking a deep breath as he sits down, he locks his eyes onto mine and pauses. He knows I’m intimidated by him when he’s like this.
He’s always known.
“Maybe I won’t give you a divorce,” he says casually. “Perhaps I’ll just keep you around, like a pet.”
The blood in my body turns cold.
“What?”
My voice cracks. I use every ounce of strength I have to prevent tears gathering in my eyes. If he sees them, he’s won.
“I’m in no rush for a divorce.” He shrugs. “Sounds like you can’t wait to get away from me. Yes, I think it might be better to keep you around.”
“You can’t do that,” I say, shaking my head.
“Of course I can,” he says, a hint of amusement in his voice. “If I wanted to, I could make it my life’s mission to ensure you’re not happy, Leila.”
The threat lingers in the ravine between us, along with everything else that remains unsaid. I have, of course, seen this side of Julian many times before, but never dared confront it.
“This is what you did to Sienna, isn’t it?” I tell him. “That’s why she never spoke about you—she was just so relieved to get away from you. She didn’t leave you for another man—she just wanted a life without you in it.”
“Sienna was a crazy bitch.” He laughs. It’s the same line he’s peddled for years.
“And you couldn’t stand it, could you? It didn’t make sense to you, a woman daring to leave you without a reason.
So, you created one and made sure everyone knew it.
All those times you begged me not to cheat on you like she did.
Not only was it a lie but you were doing that very thing to me. That’s top-tier hypocrisy, Julian.”
“I never told anyone she cheated on me,” he says, holding his hands up, feigning innocence.
“You heavily implied it. The truth is, you need women around so you can manipulate them to make you feel powerful.”
Audrey was right.
“I’m pretty sure everyone we know would disagree with that.”
“Yes, they would. Because outside these walls, you’re a model husband. They don’t see what I see. I used to idolize you.”
“Oh, give it a rest, would you?” he fires back.
“Spare me the victim speech. You haven’t done too badly out of this.
You think you’d be getting briefed in murders and high-profile cases if you weren’t my wife?
The fact is, Leila, you’re an average barrister at best, and that’s being kind.
You only do well because you’re attractive.
Jurors like you, I’ll give you that. But you wouldn’t have achieved what you have without me, and you know it. ”
Julian is the kind of man who chooses what comes out of his mouth very carefully, as all barristers do. He knows that saying this, right now, is going to throw me off. That’s the intended consequence.
I want to scream. I want to cry, rage, and hurl abuse about betrayal, deceit, what a massive dick he is. But I don’t.
“I need to go out,” I say quietly. “I don’t know how long I’ll be. Good luck with your speech.”
As I walk out of the door with my case papers and laptop, Chester’s voice echoes in my head. Trials aren’t won on facts, it’s all about likability.
I think this speech requires a change in direction.