Chapter 19
The morning is crisp and bright, a perfect an autumn day that feels like a lie.
It’s the first time I’ve had to appear in front of a judge since my own public execution and subsequent miraculous resurrection.
The case is a dry, tedious piece of commercial litigation—a contract dispute for one of Jasper’s legitimate real estate holdings.
It’s the kind of clean, procedural work he’s been feeding me, a slow reintroduction to the world I used to inhabit.
Jasper is already gone, off to some early morning meeting that exists in a stratosphere of power I am not yet privy to.
The penthouse is quiet, filled with the scent of the coffee he left for me.
Before I leave, I grab my new phone. My fingers hover over my mother’s contact.
I haven’t spoken to her, really spoken to her, in weeks.
The guilt is a low, persistent hum. I type out a quick text.
Hey Mom. In court today. Just wanted to say I miss you.
I hit send before I can second-guess it. It’s a small, dangerous bridge back to a world I’ve been severed from.
The courthouse is a jarring mix of the familiar and the foreign.
The same worn marble floors, the same smell of old paper and stale coffee, the same anxious energy.
But I am different. I walk with a confidence that is not entirely my own.
The expensive leather of my briefcase feels solid in my hand.
My heels click with an assured rhythm. I am no longer a harried public defender drowning in debt; I am a high-powered corporate attorney, and I feel the subtle shift in how people look at me.
The respect is immediate, unearned but freely given to the suit I’m wearing.
I scan the docket outside Courtroom 3A. Donovan Real Estate Holdings v. Thorne Development Group. My heart stops. Thorne. Not as in Marcus Thorne, my ex-fiancé. As in his father’s firm.
A cold dread mixes with a hot surge of anger. Jasper did this. Of course he did. He must have known. This isn’t just a simple contract dispute. It’s a test. A fucking power play. He’s deliberately pitting me against my past.
Before I can fully process the implications, a voice I haven’t heard in over a year cuts through the hallway chatter.
“Well, well. Olivia Sutton. I have to admit, I’m surprised to see you here.”
I turn slowly. There he is. Marcus Thorne.
He looks exactly the same—perfectly coiffed blond hair, a smug, self-satisfied smirk playing on his lips, and a suit that costs more than my first car.
He is the personification of everything I ran from: the easy privilege, the casual cruelty, the belief that the world was his for the taking.
He looks me up and down, his eyes lingering on my expensive dress, my Italian leather shoes. His smirk widens. “I have to say, unemployment seems to agree with you. I assumed when I didn’t hear back, you’d packed it in. Moved back home with your tail between your legs.”
The old me would have flushed with shame. The old me would have stammered a defense. But I am not the old me. I have stared into the face of a true monster; Marcus is just a spoiled little boy playing dress-up.
I offer him a cool, placid smile. “Hello, Marcus. It’s good to see you’re still gainfully employed by your father. I was worried nepotism might have gone out of style.”
His smirk falters. A flicker of anger crosses his face. “Cute,” he spits. “You really think you can handle this? You’re in over your head, Liv. You always have been.”
“We’ll see, won’t we?” I say, my voice calm and even. I give him a final, dismissive up-and-down look. “You might want to have your tailor look at that shoulder. It’s bunching.”
I turn and walk into the courtroom, leaving him sputtering in the hallway. The small victory feels good, clean. A part of me is still screaming on the inside, a chaotic jumble of nerves and old hurts. But on the outside, I am ice.
The hearing is a motion to dismiss our claim.
Marcus argues for his client, Thorne Development, his voice full of the smooth, practiced confidence of a man who has never had to truly fight for anything.
He’s good, I’ll give him that. He’s polished.
He lays out his arguments with a theatrical flair, a performance for the judge.
Then, it’s my turn. I stand, my hands steady on the lectern. I don’t perform. I dismantle.
“Your Honor,” I begin, my voice clear and strong.
“Mr. Thorne’s argument is an eloquent and passionate defense of a position that is, regrettably, completely irrelevant to the facts of this case.
He speaks of intent, but the contract, as you’ll see in Exhibit B, page 4, paragraph 3, is explicitly a strict liability agreement. ”
Marcus assumed I was the same passionate, idealistic lawyer who relied on appeals to fairness and justice. He wasn’t prepared for this version of me.
I walk the judge through the contract, clause by excruciating clause.
I lay out the precedent, the case law, with a cold, surgical precision.
I am not trying to win the judge’s heart.
I am cornering his mind, leaving him no logical room to maneuver.
I am not just arguing; I am constructing an inescapable cage of logic.
By the time I finish, Marcus’s face is pale. He has been outmaneuvered, not with passion, but with a superior, more brutal command of the facts.
The judge, a stern-faced woman in her sixties, looks down from her bench. “Mr. Thorne, any rebuttal to Ms. Sutton’s interpretation of the strict liability clause?”
Marcus stammers, trying to recover, but the damage is done. He has nothing.
The judge sighs, clearly annoyed. “Motion to dismiss is denied. We will proceed to discovery. Counsel, get a scheduling order to my clerk by the end of the week.” She bangs the gavel. “We’re done here.”
I gather my files, my hands not shaking in the slightest. For the first time in months, I feel a sense of my old self, a thrill of a clean, intellectual victory. I did this. Not Jasper. Me.
“Liv, wait.”
Marcus is beside me as I’m walking out of the courtroom. His smug confidence is gone, replaced by a look of grudging respect and confusion.
“That was…” he starts, then stops, searching for the right word. “Impressive.”
“I do my homework,” I say, not slowing my pace.
“Where are you working?” he asks, walking to keep up with me. “The docket just said your name. No firm.”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” I reply coolly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have actual work to do.”
“Liv, come on,” he presses, his hand reaching out to touch my arm.
I flinch away from his touch as if burned.
“I was a jerk. Okay? I was an asshole when we broke up, and I was an asshole in the hallway. I’m sorry.
When I heard what happened to you… I was worried. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
His concern, whether real or feigned, is about six weeks and a lifetime too late. “I’m fine, Marcus,” I say, my voice flat. “I don’t need you to worry about me. Not then, and not now.”
I turn and walk away, leaving him standing there in the middle of the hallway. I don’t look back.
Before I leave the courthouse, I need to use the restroom. The adrenaline from the hearing is beginning to fade, leaving me feeling a bit shaky. I need a moment to collect myself before I step back out into the world.
The ladies’ room is empty, a quiet, sterile space of white tile and fluorescent lights. I splash some cold water on my face, looking at my reflection in the mirror. The woman looking back is the same one from this morning, but her eyes are brighter, sharper.
I go into one of the stalls and do my business. As I’m washing my hands at the sink, the door to the stall at the far end of the room creaks open. I hadn’t even realized someone else was in here.
A woman steps out. She’s in her late forties, with a sharp, intelligent face, short brown hair, and the kind of plain, practical pantsuit that screams government employee. She doesn’t look like a lawyer. Her eyes are piercing, and they are fixed on me.
“Olivia Sutton,” she says. Her voice is low, calm, and utterly devoid of warmth. It’s not a question.
I’m instantly on high alert. My heart starts a slow, heavy thud. “Do I know you?” I ask, my own voice coming out cooler than I feel.
She takes a step closer, and I instinctively take a step back, my hand still damp from the sink. “My name is Special Agent Michelle Jennings,” she says, her gaze unwavering. “FBI.”
My blood turns to ice. FBI. The organization that has spent decades trying, and failing, to cage the Sinclairs.
“I have nothing to say to you,” I say, my voice tight. I make a move to walk past her, toward the door.
She doesn’t move to block me, but her words stop me dead in my tracks. “We know about Arthur Vance.”
I freeze, my back to her. My entire body is a rigid, screaming nerve.
“We know it wasn’t a car accident,” she continues, her voice a low, confidential murmur. “We know he was in a meeting at the Donovan it's a different kind of prison.
“He is a monster, Olivia,” Agent Jennings says, her voice softening slightly. “But you don’t have to be one of his victims.”
I just stare at her, my mind a maelstrom of terror and conflict.
She is offering me a ghost of a chance, a sliver of the life I thought was gone forever.
A life of freedom, however precarious. But the price is betraying him.
The price is trying to run from a man who sees everything, who controls everything.
The door to the restroom swings open, and two chattering paralegals walk in. Agent Jennings gives me one last, meaningful look.
“Think about it,” she whispers. She pulls a small, plain white business card from her pocket and presses it into my numb hand. “When you’re ready to save your own life, call me.”
And just as quickly as she appeared, she is gone, walking past the two surprised paralegals and out the door, leaving me standing there, my world once again shattered. I look down at the card in my hand. It has only a name and a number. No agency seal, nothing to trace. A burner number.
The choice is impossible. Stay with the monster I know, the one who protects me even as he owns me, or run into the arms of a system that can offer me nothing but a prayer and a target on my back.