Chapter 4 - The Checkmate
"Turn it off!" Daniel screamed, leaping to his feet, the mask of the patient husband completely incinerated. "That's illegal! It's altered! She hacked my private network!"
"I didn't hack anything, Daniel," I said.
My voice sliced through the chaos of the courtroom like a scalpel. The room instantly fell dead silent. I stood up slowly, smoothing the skirt of my charcoal dress. I looked at the man who had spent three years trying to convince me I was crazy.
"I am the administrator of the server," I decreed softly. "Reviewing data on my own equipment is entirely legal. You didn't break me, Daniel. You just gave me the time I needed to gather the receipts."
The judge slammed her gavel down, her face flushed with absolute fury.
"Mr. Caldwell, control your client!" the judge roared over the noise. "Bailiff, secure the doors! I am ordering Mr. Whitmore remanded into custody immediately pending a federal investigation for fraud, embezzlement, and reckless endangerment!"
Daniel stumbled backward as two armed bailiffs moved toward the witness stand. He looked like a man who had just watched the floor vanish beneath his feet.
"Emily, please!" Daniel sobbed, his arrogance dissolving into pure, pathetic terror as the bailiffs grabbed his arms. "I'm sorry! You're my wife! Don't do this!"
I walked out from behind the defense table. I didn't gloat. I didn't smile. I possessed the lethal, untouchable calm of an apex predator walking away from a kill.
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"I'm not your wife, Daniel," I whispered as the bailiffs snapped the handcuffs shut around his wrists. "I'm the landlord. And you're being evicted."
I turned my back on his screaming, weeping pleas, walking out of the heavy courtroom doors and into the clean, bright Los Angeles rain.
