Chapter Sixteen
Damon
On the morning of the trial, my father, my mother, and Nico were already waiting on the courthouse steps when I arrived.
Raymond stepped forward first, his expression grave, and lowered his voice before I'd even reached the top step.
"Judge Snape's presiding. I just found out this morning—too late to do anything about it. The man's notoriously difficult, Damon. Keep your composure in there. Don't go head-to-head with him."
My mother and Nico stood just behind him, worry carved into both their faces. I felt none of it myself—just a strange, settled stillness. I'd run today through my head a hundred times over the past week: facing Mandy, facing every mistake I'd made, facing whatever verdict came of it.
I straightened my tie and met my father's eyes. "It's fine, Dad. I'm ready."
Inside, I submitted my witness list to the court—my parents, Raymond and Elena; my sister, Nico; and myself.
I hadn't even finished reading the names aloud before Edward rose from Mandy's side, voice crisp with objection.
"Your Honor, I object to the scope of this witness list. This is a straightforward divorce petition. My client has made no unreasonable asset claims—in fact, she voluntarily surrendered the majority of marital property specifically to expedite this dissolution. The facts here aren't in dispute.
There's no reason to burden the court with an entourage of irrelevant character witnesses."
Every word landed with the clear implication that I was simply stalling. Wasting everyone's time out of spite.
I drew a slow breath and turned to meet Judge Snape's sharp, appraising stare.
"Your Honor, there is a fundamental disagreement between the petitioner and myself as to whether this marriage is genuinely, irretrievably broken. Mandy wishes to end it unilaterally. I do not agree. These witnesses go directly to the nature of that disagreement,
and to whether this marriage can still be salvaged."
Judge Snape tapped two fingers against the bench, his eyes moving slowly across the room, taking his time before he spoke. The silence stretched long enough that I felt it in my chest.
Then the gavel came down once.
"Objection overruled. Given the parties' direct dispute over the grounds for dissolution, the court will allow the witnesses."
With that ruling behind me, I called my father to the stand first.
I walked to the front of the courtroom, looked up at him settling into the witness box, and asked, "Mr. Walker, do you remember the day Mandy and I first decided we were both going to become lawyers?"
Edward was on his feet again before I'd finished the sentence. "Objection, Your Honor. This has no bearing whatsoever on the claims before this court. It's nothing but nostalgia dressed up as testimony, offered purely to run out the clock."
I didn't bother turning to look at him. I kept my eyes on the bench and spoke with everything I had left in me.
"Your Honor, this question goes directly to the foundation of my relationship with Mandy—to how deeply our professional and personal lives have been woven together since we were children. It's directly relevant to whether this marriage is genuinely beyond saving."
Judge Snape held my gaze for a long moment, unreadable, then gave one short nod. "Overruled. The witness may answer."
My father cleared his throat, and something soft and distant moved across his eyes—a memory surfacing from somewhere he clearly hadn't visited in years.
"Damon must have been nine. He'd broken the arm off Nico's favorite doll and point-blank refused to admit it—stood right there and lied to my face, actually. Mandy was seven at the time. She marched into the living room, found the broken pieces herself,
and laid out a timeline of exactly when he'd have had the opportunity, backed up with evidence, until he had nowhere left to hide. Cornered him into a full confession in about ten minutes."
A faint smile touched the corner of my father's mouth.
"I told her right then she'd make a hell of a lawyer someday. Damon overheard me say it, and you know my son—never once accepted losing at anything in his life. Lifted his chin and announced, 'Then I'm going to be a lawyer too. And I'll be better than her.'"
I held my father's eyes for a beat before I pressed forward. "And in your professional opinion, Mr. Walker—between the two of us, who is the better lawyer?"
Edward shot up a third time, frustration finally breaking through his composure. "Objection, Your Honor. This is entirely subjective and holds no legal relevance to a divorce proceeding whatsoever."
To everyone's visible surprise, Judge Snape lifted a hand before Edward could finish, cutting him off mid-sentence.
He adjusted his glasses, something that looked almost like genuine curiosity flickering behind them.
"Overruled. I'll admit, I'm curious to hear the answer myself. One legal mind's opinion of another's. Witness, go ahead."
My father looked at me. A long, searching look, all the courtroom sternness gone out of it, replaced by something far more complicated. Something that looked, for the first time in my life, almost like regret.
"It's always been Mandy."
His voice carried clean through the silent courtroom, no hesitation in it at all. "She's always been the better lawyer of the two of them. And looking back on it now—if it hadn't been for her, I'm not sure my son would have ever become a lawyer at all."
I let out a slow breath, broke away from my father's eyes, and turned to face Judge Snape directly.
"Your Honor, as the witness just testified—Mandy wasn't just the starting point of my career. She has been the single most critical anchor in my entire life. Without her, I wouldn't only have failed to become the lawyer I am. I would have failed to become a man capable of warmth,
of honest self-reflection, of anything worth calling character. Take her out of the equation, and what's left of me is considerably less."
I paused. My eyes drifted across the courtroom to the still, composed figure sitting with her back to me, spine straight, giving nothing away.
"I made mistakes in this marriage. I won't stand here and pretend otherwise. But what I feel for her—what I've depended on her for, my whole life, long before either of us understood what that meant—that has never once changed.
I'm working every day to become someone who deserves to stay in her life. I don't believe what's broken between us is beyond repair."
My voice held, barely. "I'm asking this court not to end a marriage that still has something worth saving in it. She is the reason I ever became someone worth being. I am not finished becoming that person yet, and I don't intend to stop."