Chapter 4 - THE LEGAL BATTLE
Two weeks later, I was discharged from the hospital and moved back into my apartment. The transition was brutal. The physical pain was a constant, grinding companion, but it was the silence that felt the heaviest. My phone no longer rang with calls from my mother. My father wasn't dropping by. I had essentially orphaned myself to survive.
I spent my days in physical therapy, trying to convince my torn shoulder muscles to function again, and my afternoons in the high-rise office of Sarah Lin, a ruthless civil and victims’ rights attorney I had hired using my emergency savings.
Sarah was a shark in a tailored suit. She sat across from me at a massive glass conference table, sliding a thick legal binder toward me.
“The criminal trial for Colton is set for three months from now,” Sarah said, her pen tapping a rhythmic beat on the table. “The DA is going for Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon—his boots—and First-Degree Fraud. Jillian is facing multiple counts of Identity Theft and Conspiracy. But here is the problem, Maya. Colton’s lawyer managed to get him out on bail.”
I froze, the paper cup of water in my good hand trembling. “Bail? How? He’s a violent flight risk who owes money to the mob. Who posted bail?”
Sarah sighed, a rare look of sympathy crossing her sharp features. “Your parents. They remortgaged their own house to secure a bail bondsman. They put up their life savings to get him out because Jillian is pregnant.”
The air rushed out of my lungs. Pregnant. Jillian had played the ultimate trump card. My parents, desperate to protect their unborn grandchild, had mortgaged their own future to free the man who nearly killed me.
“He’s out,” I whispered, a cold sweat breaking out on my neck. “He knows where I live.”
“Which is why we are taking immediate action,” Sarah stated firmly, pulling out a restraining order document. “I’ve already filed an emergency protective order. He cannot come within five hundred feet of you, your workplace, or your apartment. If he does, his bail is revoked instantly, and he goes straight to maximum security. Furthermore, I’ve hired a private security firm to install cameras at your apartment complex, courtesy of our firm’s victim fund. You are not going to be a sitting duck, Maya.”
I nodded, trying to draw strength from Sarah’s confidence, but the fear was a living thing in my chest.
That night, the psychological warfare began.
I was sitting on my couch, trying to read a book with my good arm, when my phone buzzed. It was an unknown number. I ignored it. A minute later, it buzzed again. Then a text message came through.
You think a piece of paper is going to stop me from saving my family? You should have just signed, Maya. Sleep tight.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I immediately took a screenshot and sent it to Sarah and Detective Harris. Harris called me back within five minutes.
“Maya, I have a patrol car stationed down the street from your building,” Harris assured me, his voice tight with anger. “Colton is using a burner phone, so we can’t trace the location instantly, but we are watching. Make sure your doors are deadbolted. Do not go near the windows.”
For the next three days, the harassment escalated. A brick was thrown through the windshield of my parked car. The word "TRAITOR" was spray-painted in red on the brick wall of my apartment building. My mailbox was pried open and empty.
Colton was trying to break my spirit before the trial. He wanted me to recant. He wanted me to tell the DA that it was a misunderstanding, a family fight that got out of hand.
But every time I looked in the mirror at the fading yellow and purple bruises on my face, every time a sharp spike of agony shot down my arm during physical therapy, my resolve hardened into diamond.
On the fourth night, I couldn't sleep. The apartment felt suffocating. I walked into my small kitchen to get a glass of water. As I stood by the sink, bathed in the pale glow of the streetlamp outside, the security application on my phone chimed loudly.
It was an alert from the camera Sarah had installed in the hallway outside my front door.
I picked up the phone, my breath catching in my throat.
May you like
On the glowing screen, rendered in sharp night-vision black and white, was a man standing directly outside my apartment door. He was wearing a dark hoodie, pulled up tight, but I recognized the broad shoulders and the aggressive stance anywhere.
It was Colton. And he was holding a crowbar.
