Chapter 71 — Divorce Trial Begins
The divorce trial began with Ryan staring at the evidence table as if it had insulted him personally.
In a way, it had.
There were six folders on Marcus’s side. Blue, grey, white, red, black, and one plain brown file with no label.
Ryan kept looking at the brown one.
Good. Unmarked things frighten guilty men more than accusations.
I sat beside Marcus in a charcoal dress, hands folded, wedding ring gone, face calm enough to annoy my former husband from ten feet away.
Ryan arrived with two lawyers and the expression of a man who had been told confidence could be rented by the hour.
It could not.
The judge entered. Everyone stood, and for one brief second Ryan looked relieved by a room where rules still told him what to do.
Ryan glanced at me as we sat down again. I did not glance back.
Marcus opened first. Not loudly. Never loudly.
“This case concerns the dissolution of a marriage, but also the preservation of marital assets and the respondent’s attempts to reach property he never owned.”
Ryan’s lead barrister stood. “That is disputed.” Marcus nodded. “Many hopeless things are.”
The judge looked over her glasses. “Mr Vale.”
“My apologies, Your Honour. I will be precise.”
He was always most dangerous when pretending to be corrected.
He opened the blue folder. Hotel invoices.
The first page showed Ryan’s name, Lila’s initials, dates, and payments from an account that was not supposed to fund private entertainment.
Ryan’s jaw tightened.
Marcus did not read every detail. He did not need to.
Evidence is often crueler when the room fills in the rest.
The second folder held messages. Lila asking whether Ella suspected anything. Ryan replying that I suspected nothing because I had nothing.
My stomach did not move. Not now.
Pain had already been converted into exhibits.
The third folder held property records. The investment flat. The mixed funds. The transfer attempts after the first compliance notice, each date sitting neatly beside a decision he had hoped would remain private.
Ryan whispered to his barrister. His barrister placed one hand on his sleeve, the legal version of sit down and stop bleeding.
Then Marcus touched the brown file.
Ryan’s eyes followed.
“This,” Marcus said, “is the respondent’s draft settlement position, prepared three months before Ms Hart left the marital home.”
Ryan blinked. He had not seen it.
Neither had his lawyers.
Marcus continued. “It proposes that Ms Hart receive household furniture, minor savings, and no claim against the investment property.”
The judge read quietly. “Was this communicated to Ms Hart?”
“No, Your Honour. It was found among documents disclosed by Mr Hart’s own former solicitor.”
Ryan went pale.
I remembered that version of him. Planning my poverty while I washed his shirts.
Marcus turned the page. “At the same time, Mr Hart was discussing with Ms Monroe how to present Ms Hart as financially dependent, unstable, and unsuitable to challenge him.”
Ryan stood halfway. “That is not fair.”
The judge’s voice cooled. “Sit down, Mr Hart.” He sat. The room heard the fall more than the chair did.
Marcus moved to the black folder. “We ask for immediate preservation of all marital assets, disclosure of all accounts, and permission to pursue transfer recovery.”
Ryan’s barrister tried to delay. Complex issues. Business overlap. Parallel proceedings.
Marcus let him speak.
Then he said, “Delay is a remedy for people who have not already been hiding the furniture.”
The judge ordered preservation. Full disclosure. Timetable compressed.
Ryan heard the words like doors locking.
As we left, he caught me near the corridor.
“You planned this before I knew anything,” he said.
I looked at him then. “No. I planned it after I knew enough.”
He swallowed. “What is in the red folder?”
I smiled for the first time that day.
“Next week.”