He Gave Her My Home So I Took Back My Life Chapter 10
By the time I finished giving my statement, dawn was breaking.
When I stepped out of the interview room, my legs felt weak, and the red marks on my wrists throbbed. The flashbulbs, the reporters’ questions, the way Graham had described me as “emotionally unstable”—it all kept replaying in my head.
Mateo was still waiting outside.
His suit was wrinkled, his tie loosened, and there were dark shadows under his eyes. He clearly hadn’t slept.
The moment he saw me, he stood and steadied my arm.
“Bail is posted. You can go.”
His voice was as calm as ever, but I could feel the tension in his fingers.
“A little longer and my team would have filed for an investigation into the handling of your detention.”
I looked up at him and, for the first time, heard the fury and fear simmering beneath his restraint.
“What about the media outside?”
“The lawyers are handling them. You don’t have to answer a single question right now.”
Mateo guided me to a seat, opened a tablet, and pulled up an encrypted folder.
“They moved first to convict you in the court of public opinion, so we have to be faster with the actual evidence.”
The first file was the full doorbell recording, automatically uploaded to the cloud.
In it, Vivian tore the pearl necklace apart herself and scratched her own arm. The clip Graham had given the police began exactly one second after she screamed.
The second file contained my hotel records from the last ten Legacy Weekends, along with proof of Graham’s payments.
The dates matched, one by one, without a single exception.
The third file was an email from the child’s therapist.
It stated clearly that the therapist had never advised Graham and Vivian to pose as a married couple for therapy, and that there was no such thing as “complete family therapy.”
I stared at the screen, my fingers trembling.
This was no longer a fight that could be explained away as a simple misunderstanding.
Fourteen months of being driven out, replaced, and framed had finally become a complete, damning chain of evidence.
I looked at Mateo, my eyes stinging.
“Thank you.”
He didn’t take the opportunity to comfort me. He just pushed the tablet closer, leaving the choice in my hands.
“You decide when you want to strike back.”
I asked softly, “Are these originals safe?”
Mateo met my eyes, his gaze certain and steady.
“They are. My team had every piece of evidence notarized and preserved.”