My Husband Defended the Man Who Assaulted Me Chapter 01

My Husband Defended the Man Who Assaulted Me Chapter 01

I called the cops immediately after I was assaulted.

Yet on the day of the trial, the man standing in court to defend my assailant was my husband, Sullivan Evans.

He was the most feared criminal defense lawyer in the state.

The moment court opened, he played a video.

The footage was vile and deeply humiliating.

Every gaze in the courtroom pierced me like a sharp needle.

He didn’t even look at me when he spoke.

“Ms. Croft, on the night in question, did you intentionally wear an unlined crimson slip dress with a plunging neckline and a high thigh slit, with the sole intent of seducing my client?”

“Did you knowingly drink ten shots of top-shelf whiskey, despite knowing your own tolerance?”

“And is it true that your infertility stemming from a history of indiscriminate relationships has left you emotionally unhinged—so much so that you decided to ruin a twenty-year-old college boy’s future with a false rape accusation?”

A storm of uproar swept through the gallery.

In the front row, Sullivan’s first love, Celine Whitmore, sat crying.

Her eyes were rimmed red, glistening with delicate, fragile tears.

Like I was the one who’d hurt her.

“Vivian, Eden is my brother! I know you’re jealous of me, but you cannot throw yourself at him out of spite, then falsely claim you were raped!”

Sullivan pressed a hand to her trembling shoulder.

I sat in the witness box, ice-cold.

Seven years ago, he’d asked the same kind of question, but for my sake.

“Does a woman deserve to be assaulted merely for drinking alcohol, wearing a dress, and walking alone at night?”

He once spoke those words to defend me; now he has honed them into a sharp blade, pointed straight at my throat.

…

The courtroom monitor flared to life, and a cold dread saturated my veins.

It’s the hotel hallway footage. Frozen frame.

There I was. Crimson dress, skin bare, stumbling.

Half my weight slumped against Eden Whitmore’s body.

From that angle, my hand looked like it was clinging to his shoulder.

A collective gasp rippled across the audience gallery.

Sullivan pointed to the screen.

“Notice, ladies and gentlemen. Ms. Croft never screamed. Her body moved with my client’s.”

“This is not resistance. This is a deliberate performance.”

My throat tightened shut, a metallic taste of blood flooding my tongue from grinding my teeth in agony.

“I wasn’t! I was drugged. I was completely incapacitated and unable to speak a word!”

“I said no.”

Sullivan finally looked at me, then quickly looked away.

His voice went arctic, like he was choking something back.

“Drugged?”

“Ms. Croft, a woman who wears a provocative midnight slip dress, gets heavily inebriated, and enters a hotel with a strange young man…”

“What makes you think anyone should believe you were forced?”

The room spun. I felt naked in front of everyone.

Sullivan’s body went rigid for a split second.

His eyes caught my pale face. I saw his throat move. Like he’d just heard himself.

But then he looked away. Back to being the coldest knife in the courtroom.

I sank my teeth harshly into my lower lip until the sharp metallic tang of blood bloomed in my mouth.

That damning red dress had been a gift from Celine all along.

“Vivian, you always dress so plain. Tonight’s Sullivan’s big celebration. You should make him look.”

I didn’t want to wear it.

Sullivan zipped it up for me. Smiled low against my ear.

“My wife in red… you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

“Don’t be scared of people staring, Vivi.”

“You’re not shameless. You’re stunning.”

Now he called me a streetwalker.

I stared at him and felt the world tilt.

Like someone had shoved me back into the nightmare from seven years ago.

Back then I was a junior associate. My boss nearly raped me.

Everyone asked if I’d “slept my way up.”

Sullivan was the one who told me: you didn’t do anything wrong.

The opposing counsel had once pointed directly at me in court, sneering, “Why did you not scream? Why did you not run? Were you not partially willing?”

He stood up. “Objection! You cannot deny my client’s trauma simply because she didn’t fight the way you imagine she should have.”

I broke down in court that day.

Because someone finally said it out loud.

I wasn’t guilty. I was just terrified.

But today, the monster was his first love’s little brother.

And Sullivan jammed those words straight into my chest:

You had brought this ruin upon yourself.