“So you’re Heidi? The child you’re carrying may not even be his. Give me five million, or I’ll ruin you.”
My entire body went rigid. The thread holding my sanity snapped in an instant.
Impossible.
The recording was fake.
My father had been unconscious ever since he was beaten. I had watched the dashcam footage dozens of times. That sentence never existed.
Heidi frowned, speaking in a fragile tone as if she had been cornered.
“Your father threatened me. I barely escaped.”
Caleb immediately pulled her into his arms, his voice cold and absolute.
“Julia, I will never forgive you. Your father being crippled is his own retribution.”
Then they presented all kinds of forged evidence, accusing my father of extortion, threats, and violence.
The judge didn’t even bother to look closely. A few perfunctory words, and the verdict came down.
I lost.
In an instant, my father and I became villains. Monsters who failed at extortion and then harmed a pregnant woman out of spite.
The snickers and mockery from the gallery stung my ears. I clenched my fists so tightly my nails dug deep into my palms.
The moment the hearing ended, before we even stepped out of the courthouse, reporters and onlookers had already blocked the entrance.
Heidi walked out surrounded by flashing cameras and sympathetic hands. Tears shimmered in her eyes, her palms pressed together like a persecuted saint.
The crowd’s anger and pity exploded at once, and fingers flew toward me and my mother.
I stood in the middle of it all, the cold wind numbing my already frozen face.
This wasn’t justice.
This was a trial they had orchestrated from the start.
Caleb wrapped Heidi protectively in his arms, his tone dripping with tenderness.
“Heidi, don’t worry. I won’t let anyone threaten you. I’ll protect you.”
The crowd’s emotions surged even higher.
Someone recognized me and immediately hurled a rotten egg my way.
A bucket of foul-smelling blood splashed down from the top of my head, seeping down my neck and soaking into my clothes. The stench was overwhelming, icy, humiliating.
“She’s a woman too, yet she tried to use someone’s reputation as leverage. Does she even have a conscience!”
“If the judge hadn’t been fair, that poor girl would have been ruined forever!”
“Her father deserved to be crippled! A daughter like that will never meet a good end!”
The curses pierced my ears like arrows.