Chapter 5 - The Divorce Court Massacre
Three weeks later, the media circus had reached a fever pitch. The public disgust toward David was absolute. Miller Nexus had been completely absorbed by the Vance Group; its engineers and staff were retained under new management, while David was officially terminated from his own company without a single penny in severance.
But David, driven by desperation and the toxic advice of his mother, decided to play his final, dirtiest card. He refused to sign the divorce papers unless he was granted joint custody of our unborn daughter and a monthly spousal support payment of fifty thousand dollars, claiming that my immense wealth meant I had a duty to maintain the lifestyle he had grown accustomed to.
The family court room was closed to the public, but the atmosphere inside was thick with tension. David sat next to a sleazy, high-priced defense attorney his mother had somehow afforded by mortgaging her final properties. David looked terrible—he had lost weight, his hair was disheveled, and he wore a cheap suit, trying to look like the victim of a wealthy, powerful woman.
"Your Honor," David’s lawyer argued, stepping up to the bench. "My client acknowledges there was a tragic, stress-induced incident at the hotel. But he is a deeply repentant man who loves his daughter. The respondent, Elena Vance, is using her massive wealth and corporate power to completely alienate a father from his child and leave him entirely destitute. We ask for joint custody and reasonable spousal maintenance."
The judge, a stern woman with decades of experience, turned her eyes to me. "Ms. Vance, what is your response?"
I didn't speak. I nodded to Victoria Sterling.
Victoria stood up, adjusting her glasses. "Your Honor, we are not denying Mr. Miller custody based on his financial status. We are denying him custody—and requesting a total termination of his parental rights—based on a documented pattern of severe domestic abuse, psychological control, and financial fraud."
David’s lawyer jumped up. "Objection! This is character assassination! There is no record of abuse prior to the hotel incident!"
"Is there not?" Victoria asked smoothly. She pulled out a sleek USB drive and handed it to the bailiff. "Your Honor, Mr. Miller believed his wife was a simple, naive accountant who worked from home. What he didn't know was that the 'freelance accounting software' he insisted she use on her home laptop was actually a highly sophisticated security program designed by the Vance Group’s cybersecurity division."
David stiffened in his seat.
"For the past two years," Victoria continued, her voice ringing with absolute authority, "every single time Mr. Miller came home and verbally abused my client, every time he threatened her, every time he threw objects at her, and every time he admitted to illegal financial dealings regarding his startup—the laptop's integrated smart-microphone and camera automatically recorded and encrypted the files, saving them directly to a secure cloud server."
The judge plugged the drive into her monitor. The courtroom speakers suddenly filled with David’s voice, recorded six months ago, screaming at me at the top of his lungs: “You’re nothing without me, Elena! You’re a stupid, useless small-town girl! If you ever try to leave me, I’ll take everything you have and make sure you never see the light of day!”
Another recording played, showing David bragging to his mother on the phone about how he was hiding company assets in offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes.
David’s lawyer slowly sat down, his face completely pale. He looked at David, whispered, "You didn't tell me about this," and closed his briefcase.
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The judge looked up from the monitor, her face a mask of pure disgust. She looked at David as if he were a cockroach.
CHAPTER 5 HOOK: David thought he was playing dirty, but he didn't realize I had every single one of his sins recorded in high-definition. The judge is about to hand down a sentence that will ruin him forever.
