Chapter 13 - The Private Meeting
After the court session adjourned, Julian waited for me in the private conference room adjacent to the clerk's office.
I stepped into the room, keeping the door open three inches while Marcus stood guard in the hallway outside.
Julian stood up immediately, taking a step toward me before stopping himself when he saw the cold distance in my eyes.
"Elena... please," Julian whimpered, his hands shaking at his sides.
"I didn't know... I swear on my life I didn't know she drugged me..."
"I thought I just drank too much... I thought you abandoned me..."
I looked at the man I had married four days ago—a man who was thirty years old but still tied to his mother's apron strings.
"You let her take over our bedroom on our wedding night, Julian," I said, my voice quiet, steady, and unbreakable.
"You looked at me with that same pathetic, apologetic face when she demanded to sleep in our bed."
"You chose her comfort over my dignity... and that choice cost you everything."
Julian's eyes flooded with tears, a sob catching in his throat.
"I was terrified of her, Elena! She controlled my trust fund my whole life! She threatened to cut me off if I didn't obey her!"
"You were a thirty-year-old man, Julian," I replied, pulling a set of legal papers from my portfolio and laying them on the table.
"These are divorce papers."
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"I am taking my father's two hundred thousand dollars back, and I am keeping the Katy house."
"Sign them, Julian... or Marcus will add you as a co-conspirator in the federal wire fraud indictment."
