The Defense She Chose

My mother was beaten into the ICU, and I signed six critical-condition notices in one night. When I was at my lowest, my girlfriend disappeared without a trace. Only after my mother died did I stand in court as the plaintiff's attorney in her case. My girlfriend, gone for two months, appeared at the defense table. She was defending the man who killed my mother. Chapter 1 The words "defense counsel" stabbed my eyes until they hurt. Celia Drake mouthed two words at me. "I'm sorry." I almost laughed. But under my suit jacket, my hands wouldn't stop shaking. Could one sorry smooth over everything? Two months ago, my mother had been working her late-night food truck when she got into an argument with someone. She was beaten until her whole body was covered in injuries and her organs bled internally. She already had high blood pressure, diabetes, and a handful of other conditions. The night she was in the ICU, I signed six critical-condition notices. I sat in that empty hallway, under the harsh white lights, on tiles so cold and hard the whole corridor felt like a place built for death. I was so cold my teeth wouldn't stop chattering. That was the most desperate night of my life. My girlfriend, Celia Drake, was nowhere to be found. No calls. No texts. When I needed her most, she'd vanished from the face of the earth. "Julian..." My colleague saw Celia across the courtroom and panicked too. His lips moved slightly. "Isn't that your girlfriend? What's she doing over there..." He couldn't finish the sentence. Yes. It was ridiculous. My girlfriend was now defending the murderer who had killed my mother. Once court was in session, there wasn't the slightest trace of guilt on Celia's face. I thought defending him was already shameless enough. I didn't expect her to argue that the killer had acted in drunken self-defense. My mother was in her fifties, barely five-foot-three, and weighed maybe ninety pounds. The murderer across from me was six feet tall and two hundred pounds. Self-defense? Ha. I wanted to laugh, but I couldn't. My fingers clenched around the case file until the papers trembled. Looking at the woman I'd once loved, sitting opposite me, I felt cold all the way through. I lowered my voice and said to my colleague, "Get ready to lose." And we did lose. The key evidence we'd prepared was suddenly gone. The judge's questioning gaze fell on us, heavy with pressure. My colleague was sweating through his shirt. I said nothing. The moment I saw Celia as my opponent, I knew losing was inevitable. Chapter 2 After we left the courthouse, Celia and I ran into each other head-on. Behind her stood the murderer, Marcus Lane. Marcus straightened his collar, glanced at me, and spat on the ground. "Bad luck." "You son of a..." Mason, my colleague, couldn't hold back and nearly swung at him. Celia hurriedly stepped in front of Marcus, shielding him, her eyes full of guilt. "Julian, what happened was my fault... but can't you let him go? Your mother has already..." Under my icy stare, her voice grew smaller and smaller until she muttered, "But the living still have to keep living." I looked at her and had never felt she was more unfamiliar. Maybe I'd never really known her at all. My gaze slid to the man behind her, and bloodlust surged in my chest. But I wouldn't become a violent person like him. My weapon was the law. That was what I was best at. I asked only one question. "Who is he?" Celia didn't dare meet my eyes. She hesitated and didn't answer. I understood enough. "Don't tell me he's the ex who broke up with you because he couldn't come up with the twenty grand your parents demanded?" Celia's face turned white. I knew I'd guessed right. My words were only a statement of fact. They held no insult. But it struck Marcus exactly where it hurt. His face twisted, and he lunged forward with his fist raised. "Who the hell are you insulting?" "Don't..." Celia tried to stop him, but it was too late. I blocked his punch easily. The muscle beneath my suit showed through for a second. I'd built that muscle through years at the gym and years of taekwondo. Not like him, with nothing but soft fat. I shoved him away and turned back to Celia. "You don't think this is the final verdict, do you?" Celia went pale. "You're appealing?" Wasn't that obvious? A living person had died. The life of my gentle, loving mother, the woman who had held up the sky for me with her frail shoulders, had been taken. Chapter 3 I went to the cemetery and placed a bouquet of pale pink and white roses before her grave. As I looked at the memorial photo on the tombstone, at the gray-haired woman smiling so gently, my eyes stung uncontrollably. It felt as if countless knives were carving through my heart, leaving me unable to breathe. I forced out a smile. My little old lady had always loved seeing me smile. "I told you it wasn't safe at night. I told you to close up early. You just wouldn't listen. Your son is already a well-known attorney at a top firm. Was I going to let you starve? "Now look what you've done. You left your precious son alone in this world. What am I supposed to do now?" My mother and I came from a poor rural town. My father died in an accident when I was five. My mother was still young then, and plenty of people tried to arrange marriages for her. But she said she was afraid I'd be mistreated by someone else's family, so she refused to remarry and raised me alone. The drunk widower who lived down the road once climbed up to our window to peep while she washed. Someone came to our door with two thousand dollars and demanded my mother become his wife. Someone else came with a basket of eggs and wanted to buy me as a son. People stole our land. People stole our chickens. The hardship and humiliation couldn't be explained in a few words. In the end, it all became the image of my mother crying quietly by the window under moonlight, so small, yet so strong. As a child, I couldn't help her with much. I could only think: Julian Mercer. Grow up. Grow up faster. Become a man who can stand tall, and never let Mom suffer again. And I did it. From childhood on, I was always the top student. I won admission to one of the country's most prestigious universities, went straight into graduate study, and had more job offers than I could count after graduation. In the end, I chose Sterling & Howe, the best litigation firm in the country. I interned for only half a month before they made an exception and hired me full-time. In less than six months, I was handling complex legal matters independently and giving effective opinions. Later, after passing the bar, I became a senior trial attorney. The speed of my rise made people afraid. Now, in the legal world, everyone knew Attorney Mercer. And my drive had always been simple. I wanted to hold up the sky for the woman who cried under the moonlight. But now, I was the only one left. All that pride had turned hollow. Chapter 4 When I returned to the office, I sat in my chair and rolled over to the window, looking down at the lights of thousands of homes. Behind me, the office door opened. "I heard Celia took the murderer's case as defense counsel. Has she lost her mind? And they said the key evidence disappeared too. What happened?" I looked back at my closest partner. Evelyn Frost was one of the few women attorneys at our firm, dressed in a white suit, sharp and fearless. I leaned back, closed my eyes, and let my voice drift lightly through the room. "The day after my mother died, she came to see me. She comforted me for a few minutes, then left. After she left, the evidence was gone." The key evidence was a ring. When my mother arrived at the hospital, she'd been gripping it tightly in her hand. There was blood on it from two people. That ring could directly identify the killer. But now Celia was arguing that the murderer had been drunk, that my mother attacked him, and that he'd had no choice but to defend himself. So in truth, the ring wasn't enough anymore. What I had to prove now was that Marcus hadn't acted in self-defense. Even if he'd been drinking, he was conscious, intentional, malicious. He beat and injured my mother on purpose. Evelyn's gaze grew complicated. "If you couldn't find the evidence, didn't you suspect her?" I was silent for a while. In front of the partner I'd trusted for years, I finally let the ugliest part of myself show. I raised a hand over my eyes. My mouth was smiling, but tears slid silently from the corners of my eyes into my hair. How could I explain it? When I was keeping vigil outside my mother's ICU room, I was still worrying about why Celia had suddenly disappeared. I worried her parents had dragged her home to force her into marriage. I worried she'd been threatened by some unreasonable client. But the one thing I never imagined was that, during the most desperate stretch of my hospital vigil, she was with her ex, planning with the murderer how he could escape legal consequences. Even the moment she came to my home and stole the evidence, stabbing me in the back, I was still worrying whether her own case would succeed. My mother had never really liked her. But before my mother died, I'd argued with her about marrying Celia. "I regret it so much..." I turned my chair away from Evelyn, my face streaked with tears. Evelyn said nothing. She waited until my emotions had passed, then came behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder. "Then what about the appeal? Do you have a chance?" I lowered my hand and looked into the night. I only smiled. In my eyes, there was nothing but the confidence and certainty I'd built through my profession. Over the years, whenever Celia had a difficult case, I'd been the one handling it behind the scenes. I knew exactly what she was capable of. As her boyfriend, I'd thought everything about her was good. But as a professional attorney, Celia was only average. She wasn't even as capable as the interns at Sterling & Howe. The small reputation she had in the legal circle was only because every case she took had passed through my hands first. I broke down the key points for her, searched the statutes, and even wrote her arguments. All she had to do was stand in court and recite what I'd prepared. Nothing could go wrong. But I'd raised a thankless wolf. Maybe the praise outside had gone to her head. Maybe she really believed her current fame and honor came from herself. She couldn't see herself clearly anymore. Standing in the same courtroom as me. Was she worthy? Chapter 5 There was still a month before the second trial when Celia came to see me. I held my coffee and took a small sip, watching her sit across from me with tears running down her face. Honestly, I wasn't surprised. Once enough time passed, she would come back to her senses and realize that going against me in court was beyond her abilities. Tears clung to Celia's cheeks. "Julian, do you still blame me?" Looking at her like that, the heart that had loved her for five years ached out of habit. Then came a wave of disgust so strong it nearly swallowed me. Betrayal itself wasn't terrifying. What was terrifying was sinking into the past and never climbing out. I'd always been someone who knew when to cut things off. The reason I came to meet her was simple. I wanted to hear an apology. I wanted an explanation. Five years of love deserved a formal ending. "What else should I do?" I sneered. "What do I have to say to defense counsel?" "I didn't have a choice." Celia grew a little agitated. "You know Marcus and I had a deep history. We were supposed to get married, but in the end I broke up with him because of money. I've always felt guilty. After that, he fell apart, and he started drinking. If he hadn't been drunk that day, your mother wouldn't have..." "You don't get to mention my mother." My gaze turned cold in an instant. Celia's face went pale. She seemed frightened by me, looking at me with fear and panic. The agony and despair I had suppressed for ages finally burst forth. "Do you know that in the days before my mother died, I was still arguing with her about marrying you? Do you know that she finally agreed?" Celia and I had been together for five years. My mother had never agreed to our marriage. But I knew, over all those years, my mother had never treated Celia badly. When Celia broke with her parents and ran away from home, my mother was the one who took her in and let her live with us for two years without paying a cent. In front of the neighbors, my mother defended her. When it rained or turned cold, she always checked on her. At the dinner table, there were always several dishes Celia liked. "As a mother, given the family you came from, was it strange for her to hesitate because she worried about her son? "Aside from that, she treated you like her own daughter. And now you're defending the man who killed her. Do you have a conscience?" Celia was crying so hard she could barely make a sound. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry... "I'm in pain too. After all these years, I already saw Aunt Margaret as my own mother. Do you think I'm not suffering? "I miss her too. I didn't want her to die either..." I looked at her trembling shoulders, fragile and pitiful like gardenias beaten by a storm. "Stop crying," I interrupted. Celia lifted her head. A tiny light appeared in her eyes. I said, "My mother might hear it and feel cursed." Celia swayed on the spot. I said coldly, "I only have one question. Are you with Marcus now?"