41. Chapter 41
Chapter forty-one
JUDE GRAVES
A few days later, Levi stands several feet away speaking with federal attorneys while assistants move sealed folders and thick stacks of paperwork across tables in organized piles.
He looks controlled and immaculate. Slicked-back brown hair without a strand out of place, sharp blue eyes constantly assessing the room like he’s calculating ten outcomes ahead of everyone else at all times.
Behind me, Adela sits beside Rafe with one leg crossed tightly over the other, her fingers tapping absently against the edge of her chair while she watches the courtroom.
Heather and Micah sit directly behind me with Emma.
She offers a tight smile, and I return it.
I didn’t want to leave that bed this morning.
Despite how different it feels between us lately, we still gravitate toward each other in sleep.
I’ll wake up in the middle of the night to find my arm over her, or her nestled against the warmth of my back.
A court officer shuts one of the side doors heavily, and the sharp crack echoes through the room hard enough that Emma flinches.
I lean closer toward her, lowering my voice. “You okay?”
She nods too quickly. “Yeah.”
Before turning around in my seat, I see that reporters are whispering to each other.
This is despite the judge’s repeated warnings about disclosure restrictions involving trafficking victims and sealed evidence connected to the Moscow investigation.
Most names still haven’t been released publicly.
Vlad’s and Henrik’s included. Not yet, anyway.
Levi finally returns to the table beside me, setting down another thick folder before unbuttoning his suit jacket and taking his seat. “Today will primarily focus on evidentiary continuation,” he says quietly.
I stare blankly ahead at nothing. “Sounds thrilling.”
His eyes flick toward me briefly. “Try not to antagonize federal court staff, Jude.”
Time behaves strangely inside courtrooms. It stretches until seconds feel fucking unbearable, then collapses entirely until hours pass in flashes that barely connect properly in my memory afterward.
A lot has felt this way since Moscow, really.
I barely feel like I’m a human being most of the time.
All of us seem like this, except for Rafe and Adela, because they deal with violence every damn day in their lives and call it business.
Every piece of evidence falls together as Levi dismantles the prosecution’s framing, one careful layer at a time.
The prosecution tries repeatedly to position me as an active participant inside Alexei’s and Nolan’s organization instead of what I actually was, but Levi counters every argument almost effortlessly.
What Adela and Nico were able to recover from Nolan’s flash drive is saving my fucking ass.
I sit there listening to strangers explain my abuse through legal terminology while my knee bounces uncontrollably beneath the table. It feels like watching an autopsy performed on my own goddamn life.
Every now and then, I shove a hand back through my hair and glance at Emma just to ground myself. Because part of me still keeps waiting for someone to just stand up and say it.
Monster. Murderer. Psychopath. Coward. Demon.
Emma testifies only briefly. Levi prepared her carefully beforehand, telling her to keep answers concise, but hearing her speak at all makes my heart ache.
“Yes,” she says quietly when asked about Nolan’s control over our environment.
Her fingers twist tightly together in her lap before she forces herself to continue.
“Nolan controlled every aspect of Jude’s life.
I saw how scared Jude was of Nolan.” She pauses.
“He was a killer. And he threatened a lot.”
The room stays silent as we listen. Adela mentioned that it would be best to frame everything so that Nolan was responsible for all of the murders that I actually committed in the States.
And that when he started getting sloppy and pissing off Alexei in Moscow, he was murdered.
And then I was taken as his new prized possession.
Nolan is the dead scapegoat.
Emma gulps. “I was too scared to speak up. Because Nolan knew who I was and could have killed me. Jude kept us safe by leaving with them for Russia. But I…” she trails off. “I couldn’t let him go. So we went to find him, not realizing that Alexei was worse than Nolan ever was.”
Something about the way she says it makes the entire courtroom still.
I lower my gaze, jaw locking hard enough to snap.
Later, Adela is called forward, carrying herself with the same confidence she always does. Rafe watches her the entire time, his fingers drumming slowly against his thigh while she speaks.
The recovered files are introduced gradually.
Vlad’s name surfaces repeatedly throughout the documentation, each mention pulling the courtroom farther away from the narrative the media originally built around me.
Because suddenly this isn’t about a violent musician spiraling publicly out of control.
It’s about a system built around coercion, murder, blackmail, and psychological domination. Alexei stops becoming a dead criminal in a headline and becomes what he actually was:
an architect.
Nolan’s role is carefully reconstructed within that framework. Not innocent. But manipulated, unstable, weaponized when useful and discarded when necessary. A man shaped into both intermediary and shield while Alexei maintained distance from direct exposure.
I stare down at my hands while legal language folds itself around the dead. Then Adela says something that changes the entire room again.
“There is one additional piece of evidence,” she says calmly.
Levi inclines his chin, turning behind us to retrieve something from Micah. His phone.
I narrow my gaze on it as Levi walks up to the stand. “What is that?” I ask.
Micah just sighs, his blue eyes falling to the floor. “I’m sorry I kept this from you.”
I tilt my head. “What do you—”
“This was recovered before the altercation,” Levi says, his gaze clashing with Micah’s. “Privately recorded from someone who is now dead.”
I go completely still.
No. No fucking way.
The static crackling softly through the courtroom speakers makes something cold slide slowly down my spine. Nobody moves or even seems to breathe. Across the room, reporters sit frozen over notebooks.
Then Micah’s voice cuts through the static. “Whenever you’re ready, Adri.”
The sound of it hurts me. Because knowing him, he already knew this conversation was going to haunt him forever.
Then comes the sound of Adriana breathing. One shaky inhale. “I don’t really know how to start this,” she says softly. “I guess honesty’s a good place.”
A horrible ache blooms slowly in my chest. The courtroom remains deathly still.
“I know I’m going to die,” she continues after a moment, and several people visibly shift at the bluntness of it. “Either now trying to escape Alexei…or years from now trying to escape my own mind.”
I stare forward without blinking.
“For the record…she asked me to record this,” Micah says quietly somewhere within the audio, his voice gentle. “Just say whatever you need to say.”
Adriana lets out a weak laugh then, but there’s no humor inside it. “God. That’s the problem, isn’t it? There’s too much to say.”
Paper rustles softly somewhere behind us before silence swallows the room again.
“I met Nolan when I was fifteen,” she says.
“I thought he was brilliant at first. He made me feel chosen. He told me that he could make me a star.” Her voice cracks slightly on the last word before steadying again.
“I trusted him. But after I was supposed to meet someone for a voiceover audition, I had a night that I still can’t remember clearly.
I awoke beside him in bed in some hotel.
He told me that he filmed us partaking in sexual acts. ”
She pauses.
“We can stop this,” Micah whispers on the audio.
“No, it’s fine,” Adriana collects herself. “I was too scared to say no to him after that. He told me no one would ever take me seriously if they saw I was a…a whore.”
Emma lowers her gaze behind me.
I can’t.
I physically cannot look away from the speakers.
“Nolan raped me for years,” Adriana continues quietly. “Controlled everything. My career. My body. My relationships. The way I thought. The way I viewed myself.” A pause. “Eventually, I stopped recognizing the difference between survival and cruelty.”
My throat tightens hard enough to hurt.
“And then Jude came into it.”
The entire courtroom seems to sharpen around my name. My pulse starts pounding violently in my ears.
Adriana exhales shakily through the speakers before continuing.
“He was younger than me. Bright in a way that made you angry just looking at him sometimes.” Another weak laugh escapes her.
“One of those people who still had softness left in him. My role was to be his publicist and girlfriend. Keep him in line. And of course, I latched right onto him. He was beautiful and kind and had a light about him. How could I not reach for that when everything else was shit?”
Tears begin burning behind my eyes. I shove my thumb hard against the edge of my palm beneath the table, grounding myself against the sudden dizziness threatening to pull me under.