Keith checked his vintage Patek Philippe—a trophy bought with our “house fund”—and caught my eye. He didn’t look at me with anger. He looked at me with the bored, clinical curiosity of a scientist watching an insect under a glass. He thought the game was over. He thought the foundation had already crumbled.
Chapter 2: The Gavel and the Guillotine
The heavy thud of the side door echoed like a strike against a hollow drum. “All rise!” the bailiff barked, his voice bored and gravelly, the sound of a man who had watched a thousand lives disintegrate before lunch.
I stood, my legs feeling like they were made of unreinforced glass. Across the aisle, Keith and Garrison rose with a synchronized, oily grace—the movement of men who owned the ground they stood on.
Judge Lawrence P. Henderson swept in, his black robes snapping around his ankles like the wings of a predatory bird. He was a man of sharp, unforgiving angles; his face looked as though it had been carved from the very mahogany of his bench. He didn’t look at us with sympathy. He looked at us like a ledger that needed to be balanced and closed.
“Be seated,” Henderson commanded. The rustle of expensive wool and the creak of the spectators’ benches followed. He opened a thick manila file, his wire-rimmed spectacles glinting under the harsh fluorescent hum. “Case number 24-NY-0091. Simmons versus Simmons. We are here for the preliminary hearing regarding the distribution of marital assets.”
The judge’s gaze drifted toward the plaintiff’s table, lingering on Garrison Ford with a flicker of recognition that wasn’t quite a greeting. “Mr. Ford, I see you’ve brought your usual theatrics to my court. I assume you’re ready?”
