My Husband Defended the Man Who Assaulted Me Chapter 02

My Husband Defended the Man Who Assaulted Me Chapter 02

I lifted my eyes to meet his, my voice thinning to a fragile, breathless whisper.

“Sullivan. You didn’t used to say things like that.”

His fingers stilled abruptly against the case file. For a single heartbeat, there was silence.

Then he pulled out another document.

[Psychiatric Intervention Records]

My heart stopped.

My therapy notes. From seven years ago.

The one wound I’d never wanted anyone to see.

I remembered those endless nights: trembling and screaming through panic attacks, scrubbing my skin raw until it bled in a compulsive urge to cleanse myself.

I couldn’t let men near me. Couldn’t walk into a closed room.

Sullivan took me to every session.

After each one, he’d hold me. Kiss my forehead over and over.

“Don’t be scared, Vivi. I’ll protect you for the rest of my life.”

I had handed him every broken, bleeding fragment of my shattered self back then.

Now he was ripping open every scar, for the whole world to watch.

He flipped the file open flat on the counsel table, his tone deadly calm and unyielding,

“Your Honor, Ms. Croft underwent long-term psychiatric intervention seven years ago.”

“Including documented stress responses to male contact, and severe persecutory ideation.”

My veins turned to ice.

“Liar…” My voice cracked. “That’s private. How could you…”

He didn’t look at me.

“Ms. Croft’s medical records document a consistent pattern of misinterpreting ordinary male interactions as violent assaults, even in the absence of any genuine threat.”

“We therefore submit that on the night in question. Under the influence of alcohol, old trauma, and marital strain, she experienced a cognitive distortion.”

The gallery exploded.

“Cognitive distortion? So she’s crazy?”

“Oh my God, she’s done this before!”

“Textbook victim complex.”

I started shaking. Sullivan glanced at me then. His knuckles went white around the file.

But Celine let out a tiny sob.

He turned back to the judge.

“Furthermore, the defense has evidence of a long-standing conflict between Ms. Croft and Ms. Whitmore.”

He pulled out more exhibits.

“Ms. Whitmore has been subjected to repeated verbal attacks from Ms. Croft, who believes Ms. Whitmore is destroying her marriage.”

“Especially after learning of Ms. Whitmore’s pregnancy, Ms. Croft’s emotional state deteriorated sharply.”

On the big screen, there were screenshots of my texts with Celine.

They were deliberately cropped, stripped of all context, curated to display only my sharpest, most confrontational lines.

[Stay away from Sullivan.]

[You know he’s married.]

[What do you actually want, Celine?]

Sullivan read them aloud and flat.

“These clearly establish Ms. Croft’s deep hostility toward Ms. Whitmore.”

I stared at the screen, freezing from the inside out.

“That’s not…”

“She sent me photos of them watching fireworks at midnight.”

“She told me her baby needed a father.”

“She said Sullivan would leave me eventually.”

Celine burst into tears, shaking her head frantically in feigned grievance.

“I never! Vivian, why are you lying about me?”

She clutched her pregnant belly tightly, hot tears streaming down her cheeks in a carefully crafted display of vulnerability.

“I only said the baby was innocent. I never wanted to take Sullivan from you!”

“Eden and I lost our parents young. He’s all I have. And now I’m pregnant and alone and I was just scared…”

Sullivan kept going.

“Did you, in the hospital maternity wing, publicly curse Ms. Whitmore’s unborn child?”

My hands clenched.

That day, Celine called saying Sullivan was in trouble.

I rushed to the hospital, and found him holding her hand during her ultrasound.

She leaned into his shoulder. Touched her stomach.

“Sullivan, do you think the baby will look more like you, or me?”

I stood there like a punchline.

All I said was, “Celine. Is this fun for you?”

Now that was “proof” of my jealousy.

I looked at the gallery. My mother, Eleanor, sat there.

Her face drained of all color, her eyes blazing red with suppressed tears and fury.

She was the toughest woman I knew. After my first case, she held me and sobbed so hard she couldn’t stand.

Then Sullivan came. He swore to God in front of her.

“Mrs. Croft, I’ll protect Vivian. No one will ever hurt her again.”

Today she watched that same man strip me naked for everyone.

She stood up suddenly.

“Sullivan Evans! Have you lost every ounce of your humanity??”

“Seven years ago, what did you promise me?”

“Now you’re using her medical records, her wounds, her pain about not having children, to get a rapist off?”

“How dare you. How dare you!”

Sullivan went pale. He stood there, unable to utter a single word in his defense.

I watched my mother’s back and felt something crack in my chest.