Chapter 10: The Hearing
The courtroom was smaller than I expected.
Myles was already seated when I arrived with Paul and Sasha.
He was in a dark suit, hair neat, posture easy.
His attorney was a man named Garrett who had the practiced calm of someone paid to appear untroubled.
Myles looked at me when I walked in.
I looked back.
Neither of us nodded.
The hearing lasted two hours.
Garrett argued that the transfers were part of a mutually agreed investment strategy, that my sudden legal action was retaliatory following a personal dispute, and that the injunction was causing irreparable harm to a legitimate business vehicle.
Sasha presented the IP address evidence.
The forensic document report had come back that morning — preliminary findings confirmed that two of the three authorization signatures from Vanessa's case were inconsistent with her known handwriting at a confidence level of 94%.
She presented Derek's emails between Myles and Claire Morrow, showing coordination of fund movements across both relationships.
She presented the timeline: proposal on a Friday, first transfer the following Monday, fourteen transfers in twenty-two days.
Garrett objected four times.
The judge overruled three of them.
At the end, the judge looked at Myles directly.
"The pattern of conduct presented here is not consistent with a legitimate investment arrangement," she said.
"The injunction stands.
Additionally, I am referring the matter of the forged authorization documents to the District Attorney's office for review." She set her papers down.
"Mr.
Garrett, your client should understand that cooperation at this stage is in his significant interest."
Garrett leaned toward Myles and said something quietly.
Myles said, loud enough that I heard it clearly: "She did this.
She went looking for trouble."
The judge looked up.
"Mr.
Garrett, please advise your client that this is not the appropriate venue for that comment."
Garrett put a hand on Myles's arm.
Myles shook it off.
He looked at me across the room.
"You have no idea what you've destroyed."
"I think," I said, "that was already destroyed before I found out about it."
Sasha touched my arm lightly.
Not a warning — just a presence.
Myles stood up.
His chair scraped back.
Garrett said his name quietly and he ignored it.
He walked out of the courtroom without another word.
Garrett gathered his papers.
He didn't look at us.
Outside in the hallway, Paul exhaled slowly.
"That went better than expected."
"What happens now?" I asked Sasha.
"The DA's office will review within thirty days.
Given what we've submitted, I expect charges to be filed.
Claire Morrow will likely be named as a co-conspirator — the email trail is too direct to ignore." She paused.
"Your thirty-one thousand dollars — recovery will depend on what's left in the Threshold accounts after the freeze.
We'll know more in the next two weeks."
"And Vanessa?"
"She's been in contact with the DA's office directly.
Her case will be folded into the same investigation." Sasha looked at me.
"She did something very hard by coming forward.
So did you."
I thought about Vanessa driving four hours to sit across from a lawyer and say out loud what had been done to her.
I thought about Derek keeping those documents for five years, waiting for someone who would fight back.
I thought about a billboard lit up in the dark, and a woman crying happy tears in a car, and a man on the other end of the line who was already planning what came next.
"Can I ask you something?" I said to Sasha.
"Of course."
"Do you think he ever felt anything real?
For me, for Vanessa — any of it?"
She considered the question seriously, which I appreciated.
"I think," she said carefully, "that some people are very good at performing the feelings that get them what they want.
Whether that constitutes feeling — I genuinely don't know." A pause.
"What I do know is that it doesn't change what was done.
And it doesn't change what you did about it."
May you like
I nodded.
We walked out of the building into the afternoon light.
