Part One – The Empty Chair
He sat there in his three-thousand-dollar suit, laughing with his high-priced shark of a lawyer and pointing at the empty chair beside his wife. Keith Simmons thought the divorce was already over. He thought stripping Grace of her bank accounts meant she would crumble.
He thought canceling her cards that very morning meant she would never be able to hire anyone decent, if she could hire a lawyer at all. He had even told the judge, half-joking, that she was too incompetent to secure counsel. But Keith had forgotten one crucial detail about Grace’s past—specifically, who had given birth to her.
When the courtroom doors eventually swung open and she walked in, the smirk didn’t just vanish from Keith’s face. It was as if the color drained from his entire existence. You are about to witness one of the harshest courtroom takedowns in the history of the Manhattan Civil Courthouse in New York City, United States.
The air inside Courtroom 304 was stale, smelling faintly of floor wax and old paper. It was the scent of endings, the smell of marriages dissolving under fluorescent lights. For Keith, though, the atmosphere smelled like victory.
He adjusted the cuffs of his bespoke Italian suit and leaned back in the leather chair at the plaintiff’s table. He checked his watch—a vintage Patek Philippe that cost more than the average American’s car—and let out a sharp, derisive exhale through his nose. “She’s late,” Keith whispered to the man beside him.
“Or maybe she finally realized it’s cheaper to just give up.”
Beside him sat Garrison Ford. Garrison wasn’t just a lawyer. He was a weapon.
Senior partner at Ford, Miller & O’Connell, he was known in New York legal circles as the Butcher of Broadway. He didn’t just win divorce cases; he incinerated the opposition until there was nothing left but ash and a very favorable settlement. Garrison smoothed his silver tie, his eyes scanning the docket with predatory boredom.
“It doesn’t matter if she shows up, Keith,” Garrison murmured, his voice like gravel grinding on glass. “We filed the emergency motion to freeze the joint assets on Monday. She has no access to liquidity.
No retainer means no representation. No representation against me means she walks away with whatever scraps we decide to toss her.”
Keith smirked and looked across the aisle. Sitting there alone was Grace.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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