Chapter 159 Chapter 159 The Trial
The courtroom is stuffy, the kind of suffocating heat that clings to your skin and makes it hard to breathe. It smells like a library, but not in the comforting, old-books kind of way—more like dust, stale air, and something quietly rotting beneath the surface. I walk toward the stand, my heels echoing too loudly against the polished floor. As long as I keep my distance from Penelope, I’ll be fine. She was sitting across the hall from me earlier, avoiding eye contact like the coward she is. I hope she’s still scared.
Dumb bitch.
I glance over at Dragon. It’s been months, and his face doesn’t even look like it was ever broken, bruised, or beaten within an inch of his life. He catches my gaze and gives me a slight smirk. That smug motherfucker.
I step into the witness box and swear over a book I don’t believe in, my voice steady even though my chest feels tight. I tell myself not to look at Ivan.
I fail immediately.
My eyes drift to him like they have a mind of their own. Fucking shithead looks good—too good—in his fitted suit, like he owns the room instead of being on trial in it. The jury is split, men and women, and I can see it in their faces—they’re already watching him closely, already pulled in by him.
John stands and approaches me, his presence calm. He starts asking me to describe the events of that night, and the night before. I answer carefully, choosing my words with precision, softening edges where I can without lying. He guides me through it. Every question is designed to pull exactly what he needs and nothing more.
Then he asks something I wasn’t expecting.
“What was Ivan like when he showed up at your apartment afterward?”
I hesitate for half a second, then answer.
“He was kind,” I say. “We talked about how things ended. He apologized.”
John nods slightly, satisfied, and returns to his seat.
The opposing lawyer stands, and the energy in the room shifts immediately. There’s nothing subtle about him. He doesn’t ease into it—he goes straight for juggular.
Without really asking questions, he starts tearing into my sexual history. Or at least trying to.
John is on his feet instantly, reminding the court that I’m not on trial. The judge agrees, telling the man to either ask a proper question or sit down.
He smirks, then looks at me.
“Have you ever feared Ivan Pavlov?”
“No,” I answer without hesitation. “Never.”
“What about the victim in this case?”
“Yes.”
A pause. He wasn’t expecting that.
“What was the circumstance?”
I don’t look away.
“Dragon told me he wanted his friends to gang bang me as a wedding present.”
The words land heavy, cutting through the room like a blade. The DA looks genuinely stunned, like this wasn’t part of whatever neat narrative he built in his head.
Then he recovers, and his tone shifts—sharp, ugly.
“That request seems appropriate, given your dating history. Sex clubs. Multiple partners.”
He steps closer, standing in front of me, not even asking a question now—just staring, like he’s daring me to defend myself.
So I do.
“No,” I say, my voice steady but cold. “It is not appropriate to ask that of your faithful fiancée. A sexual assault survivor. A domestic abuse victim.” I don’t blink. “It was inappropriate, especially after he encouraged his friends to touch me. Forcing someone into a sex act they already declined is called rape.”
The room goes quiet.
He takes a step back, like I hit him. Then he returns to his seat without another word.
They didn’t know.
John stands again, composed as ever, and asks to play the audio from the video evidence. He turns to me.
“Have you heard this before?”
"No."
I’m not sure if that helps. If they hear what Dragon said… doesn’t that make it a crime of passion? Doesn’t that change things?
The audio starts.
I can’t breathe.
The words coming out of the speakers don’t feel real. They don’t belong to the man I thought I knew—the man I trusted, planned a future with, shared everything with. The man I lived with, slept beside, believed in.
But it is him.
Every word is worse than the last.
My vision blurs as tears slip down my face, silent and uncontrollable. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the jury. They’re stiff, frozen, horror written across their faces.
Good.
Let them hear it.
My gaze shifts to Ivan. His expression is controlled, almost detached, but I can see it—the anger, the pain, the violence barely contained beneath the surface.
Then his voice cuts through the audio.
Strong. Clear.
He tells Dragon he has no right to speak about me like that. That I am not something to be used. That I am the woman he loves.
I can practically hear the shift in the jury. The women especially. They’re hanging onto every word.
Ivan always knows how to speak when it matters.
He sounds poetic. Devoted.
All while beating Dragon into the ground with a handgun.
The contrast should disgust me.
Instead, hearing Dragon choke on his own blood, gurgling, broken—
It makes heat coil low in my stomach.
They excuse me from the stand before the video plays. I walk back, legs steady despite everything, and sit between Dimitri and Illia Sr. The entire Pavlov family is here. Even my father sits in the third row. Ivan's mom next to him.
I didn’t notice him before.
I try not to think about what he just heard. About what he now knows. Maybe he already suspected some of it—but not all. Not the full picture. Not how far I’ve gone.
Like the DA said.
Four men in twenty-four hours.
I think I might actually have a problem.
Closing arguments blur together. I barely hear them. My focus stays locked on Ivan, on the back of his head, the way his shoulders remain straight, unyielding.
He glances back at me once.
I love him.
And I will wait for him.
His father is hoping for probation. Something light. Something survivable.
The judge sends the jury out.
It takes them one hour.
One hour to decide his fate.
One hour to condemn the man I love to four years behind bars.
The missing weapon doesn’t matter. None of it does. They wanted to make an example out of him. At least it wasn’t six years.
At least.
The thought feels hollow.
It feels like the ground disappears beneath me. Dimitri grabs my hand, holding it tightly, like he’s anchoring me in place. I can barely feel it.
After everything—the witnesses, the testimony, the truth laid out piece by piece—it still wasn’t enough.
Ivan turns as they cuff him.
Our eyes meet.
His face is calm, controlled, unreadable to anyone who doesn’t know him.
But I do.
“I see you,” I mouth to him.
His lips part slightly.
“Wait for me,” he says.
I see it then—the tension in his throat, the emotion he’s forcing down, swallowing whole so no one else can see it.
But I do.
I always do.