Chapter Twenty-Two Eason Storm
The courtroom was colder than I expected. Not temperature-wise, but the energy. It felt like forced-ass civility, that tension sitting thick in the air like everybody knew some messy shit was about to unfold and they couldn’t wait to witness it.
I didn’t come here to perform. I came here to end something. And that something walked in ten minutes late, draped in fake vulnerability and real designer.
Harmony Storm—still wearing my last name like a fuckin’ accessory—strode in with crocodile tears already rolling down her cheeks.
She had on a cream two-piece suit that probably cost more than the average rent, with her makeup just messed up enough to look like she was barely holding it together.
Bitch looked like she was auditioning for a Lifetime movie.
She clutched a photo album to her chest like it was some holy text. But I knew better. That shit was loaded with propaganda. Smoke and mirrors. She’d been planning this performance the moment it showed I wanted out.
The bailiff announced the judge’s arrival, and we all stood. I didn’t take my eyes off her once. But I also didn’t flinch, didn’t blink, and didn’t give her a single reaction to feed on.
She couldn’t even look at me straight. Just dabbed her eyes and sniffled every two minutes like she had something to grieve. Like she was mourning the life she chose to abandon the second it stopped being about her.
The judge looked at Harmony first. “Mrs. Storm, we’re reviewing your emergency restraining order claims. Would you like to speak before we begin reviewing Mr. Storm’s counter-petition?”
“Of course, Your Honor,” she whimpered, voice shaking like her damn soul was fractured.
I clenched my jaw.
She opened the folder and held up a picture—one of me holding Ginger as a baby, shirt off, tattoos out, a bottle in one hand while I was yelling at someone off camera.
“This… this was a good moment gone violent,” Harmony sniffled, her lower lip trembling. “He was angry that day. Screaming in front of the baby. Punching walls. That’s what I dealt with for years. A man who looked like a provider on paper but turned into someone else behind closed doors.”
Lies. Every fuckin’ one of them.
My lawyer shifted beside me, whispering that we’d present our side in a moment. But I wasn’t thinking legal strategy. I was thinking how fast I could get her out of my life before I lost what little patience I had left.
Harmony wasn’t trying to win custody. She was trying to assassinate my character.
She slid more photos across the table—old bruises, ones I knew damn well didn’t come from me. I recognized the date on one. That was the same weekend she disappeared for forty-eight hours and came home high and incoherent.
She faked the bruises, took the pictures, and filed them away like ammo. And now she was using that shit in a courtroom, under oath.
“My daughter deserves to be safe,” she said, looking directly at the judge now, voice steadying like she’d found her center. “And I’m afraid she isn’t, with a man who’s made a habit of violence and intimidation.”
I didn’t say a word, didn’t move. If I opened my mouth right now, I’d catch a charge.
But my knuckles were white from how hard I was gripping the edge of the table.
I could feel the rage seeping through my skin, hot and violent and primal.
My vision narrowed. My breathing slowed. My thoughts focused.
She’s trying to paint me like the monster. She was spinning a narrative to not only ruin me but erase everything I’d done to raise Ginger. To protect her, love her, and build a fuckin’ home she walked away from.
My lawyer finally stood.
“Your Honor,” he began calmly, “we have counter-evidence to refute each claim presented today, including timestamps, video footage, and sworn statements from multiple parties who were present during the events Harmony is referencing.”
Harmony didn’t even blink. She was too far into character and too committed to her lie.
I glanced over at Xalori, sitting in the back row with her arms folded, eyes locked on Harmony like she was already halfway through the prayer that would keep her from jumping over the railing. I wasn’t worried about the outcome. Not with what we had.
But I was done playing nice. I stood up slow, buttoned my jacket, and looked straight at the judge.
“With all due respect, I’m not just here to respond to her lies. I’m here to get this bitch out my life permanently.”
The judge blinked. “Mr. Storm—”
“I’m filing for an emergency divorce today. And I’m filing for full parental rights for Ginger. Because the only danger in that little girl’s life is the woman who abandoned her and now wants to come back to fuck mine up.”
I slid the stack of documents across the table, including the declaration where Xalori’s name was added to Ginger’s records.
“This ain’t about me and Harmony. This is about what’s best for my daughter. And I’m not about to let a manipulative, narcissistic, disappearing act of a mother, snatch her back just because she couldn’t stand to see me move on.”
The judge raised a brow but said nothing.
Harmony’s mask cracked, just slightly. Her jaw clenched. Her eyes flickered. She was starting to realize she didn’t come to a fight. She walked into a funeral. And I was burying the last tie I had to her with every damn word.
The court recessed for review, but I already knew what time it was. I was walking out of here, free. And the next time Harmony wanted to see Ginger, she’d be staring at a photo from across a courtroom, because my daughter don’t belong to her no more.
Harmony sat smug, smoothing her hair like she just killed her monologue in a movie scene. Like she didn’t just stand in front of a judge and weaponize motherhood with tears she didn’t earn.
I didn’t look at her again. Wasn’t giving her that satisfaction. Instead, I turned my attention to the one person who mattered. My woman. My anchor. The reason I hadn’t blacked the fuck out and flipped this whole courtroom upside down.
Xalori was already waiting in the hallway when I stepped out. Her arms crossed, face unreadable, but her eyes said everything. They were wild, protective, and fierce.
“You good?” She asked, her voice low.
“No,” I muttered. “Not till that bitch loses my name and my daughter in the same breath.”
Her jaw tightened. She didn’t say I was overreacting. Didn’t try to talk me down or be the voice of reason. She just nodded.
“I got Ginger,” she said. “If anything goes left, you know where she is.”
That right there was love. That was us.
The second the judge called us back in, everything changed.
“Given your absence and Mr. Storm’s documented primary caregiving role, the court will consider his request for sole custody.”
Harmony was expecting to win. Expecting to walk out of here, smug with a half-baked victory and some kind of legal leash wrapped around my neck.
What she didn’t expect was the judge to toss out her emergency restraining order for insufficient and contradictory evidence. She didn’t expect the judge to order a formal psychological evaluation on her after seeing the contradictions in her statements and the surveillance footage we submitted.
Just like she didn’t expect the courtroom to hear that she hadn’t made a single medical appointment, hadn’t paid a dime of support, and hadn’t even requested visitation in over a year.
That’s when her tears stopped. That’s when her mask cracked all the way.
“He manipulated her!” She yelled, pointing at Xalori in the back of the courtroom. “She turned my baby against me! That bitch is trying to steal my daughter!”
The judge banged the gavel, voice stern. “Mrs. Storm. One more outburst and I’ll hold you in contempt.”
But Harmony didn’t care. She was unraveling now, wild and loud and exactly who she really was under all that designer fabric and fake grace.
“She was mine!” Harmony screamed. “Ginger was mine! He stole her from me! He made her love that woman!”
And that was the real truth. Ginger had chose Xalori. Not because we told her to. Not because we forced it. But because kids know, they feel that shit in their bones. They know love. They know who shows up and who don’t.
When the court dismissed us, Harmony stormed out first—makeup smeared, fury swallowing her whole. She didn’t even glance back. Good.
I turned to my attorney, shook his hand, and gave him the last order of the day. “Make it final. I don’t want her to have nothing tied to me or Ginger again.”
We barely made it down the courthouse steps before the cameras started flashing and the chaos cracked wide open. Harmony was already waiting at the bottom of the stairs, fake tears wiped away, lipstick smudged, and fury etched across every inch of her designer-covered frame.
She was pacing, screaming, and ripping at her clutch like it betrayed her.
“I gave him everything!” She shouted to the cluster of reporters and bloggers already recording. “I carried his child! I stood by him through everything! And now I’m being replaced by some hoodrat nobody even knew existed a year ago?”
Xalori stiffened beside me as Ginger whimpered in her arms.
I stormed down the steps as reporters backed up fast and microphones dropped. But they made sure phones stayed trained on me, shaking with every step I took, but I didn’t give a single fuck. Let ‘em record. Let the whole world see.
Harmony turned just in time for me to get in her face.
“You wanna scream?” I growled, low and lethal. “Wanna play victim for the internet? Do it. But you mention my woman again, you look in her direction again, you breathe her fuckin’ name again—so help me God, I’ll remind you that I was a killer before I ever became a father.”
Her breath hitched.
“And if you ever try to use my daughter as a weapon again,” I added, stepping even closer, “you gon’ learn what it feels like to lose everything you ever claimed to love—slow.”
She blinked at me, tears now real. Not from heartbreak, but fear.
“Try me again,” I whispered, voice like gravel and gunpowder. “I dare you.”
Then I turned my back on her like she wasn’t even worth the spit it would take to cuss her out properly. Because in my world walking away was worse.
She screamed after me, some weak-ass threat about seeing us in court again. But her voice cracked and shook. She knew this wasn’t just legal, this was war. And I’d already won.
I gave Xalori a soft smirk. “You mad I threatened to send your honorary baby mama to meet her maker?”
She laughed—low, real, and tired. “Nah,” she said, “that was sexy.”
I raised a brow. “You like when I get violent over you?”
“Violent. Possessive. Unhinged.” She leaned closer, voice dipping to a whisper. “It’s giving boyfriend of the year.”
“Boyfriend?” I pulled into the garage, put the car in park, and turned to face her. “Muffin, I gave you a baby, a house, my last name—”
“We’re not technically married yet.”
I leaned closer. “You still tryna act like this ain’t permanent?”
She smiled, soft but sure. “Nah. I know it is.”
I pulled her hand to my chest. “You feel that?”
She nodded.
“That’s yours. Always been.”
Her lips parted, eyes searching mine. “Even when I was running?”
“Especially then.”
She let out a breath that sounded like surrender and salvation all at once. “You’re everything I didn’t think I deserved.”
I tilted her chin up, brushed my lips over hers—just a tease. “Good. Because I plan on spoiling you so bad you forget how to walk straight.”
She smirked. “You already did that last night.”
We both laughed as the garage door shut behind us, sealing the rest of the world out.
Tonight wasn’t about courtrooms or chaos.
Tonight, I was just a man in love with a woman I’d kill for, live for, and build a whole fucking empire around.
And tomorrow, we planned the next move. Because Prime was still breathing. And I wasn’t done yet.
“I told you,” I said, low and sure, “ain’t nobody fucking with my family.”
And I meant every single word.