Page 136 of Legally Ours

My jaw dropped, and Brandon's eyes practically bugged out of his head.

"Objection!" called Zola.

"Counsel?" asked the judge, who no longer looked quite as bored.

"It's relevant, your honor, to the witness's credibility."

"Counsel, this is clearly character evidence in violation of ER 404. Move on, and you are on thin ice."

But the cat was out of the bag. This could hurt Brandon regardless of whether this asshole was allowed to continue.

"In your testimony, you alleged that Mr. Messina tried to rape you," Cipolla switched gears again, suddenly. "Was there a rape kit done?"

"No, but that's because he didn't actually do that––"

"He didn't actually rape you?" Cipolla reiterated with faux-surprise. "Just like he didn't actually kidnap you against your will or beat you senseless? Just like he didn't actually extort your family or harm your father? Isn't it possible that you may have just made the entire thing up to cover the negligence of your own health in order to win back your fiancé, whom you had just betrayed in a very public manner?"

"Objection!" shouted Zola. "Argumentative. Move to strike counsel's testimony."

"Skylar Crosby has a well-known history of misleading the public and her fiancé," announced Cipolla.

"This is well outside the bounds of impeachment and his allegations are not relevant under ER 609," Zola broke in once more.

"Agreed. Sustained," the judge announced. "Mr. Cipolla, you will stop badgering the witness. If this happens again, we will be having a conference in my chambers."

But Cipolla just turned to smirk at me as he walked backward toward his seat. "No further questions, your honor," he said.

The judge looked at me with something approximating pity. "You may step down, Ms. Crosby."

~

There was a short recess for lunch, and then we were called back while the prosecution continued its case, starting with Brandon's testimony. I had felt like I was going to be sick for the last hour, even though Brandon had tried to assure me that I didn't sound as terrible as Cipolla made me out to be. I wasn't so sure. Juries were fickle, and right now, I looked like the bitch who killed my lover's baby and tried to cover it up.

A general murmur sounded through the court as Brandon stepped up to the witness stand. Against the drab surroundings of the courtroom, where most people were dressed in varying colors of gray, black, and tan, Brandon's bright blond head, ruddy coloring, and his tailored, deep navy suit stood out. He looked every inch of his net worth, not to mention worthy of his current "it-boy" status in Northeast politics.

I watched as he answered the questions that he had rehearsed with Zola (and his own attorneys), detailing the moments of his exchanges with Messina. The debts he had repaid to secure my family's safety. The continued harassment he'd witnessed of my father, including our visit to the salon-front run by the man and the now-missing Katie Corleone, my father's ex-girlfriend. And, of course, the moments leading up to his final rescue of me from the abandoned building in the Navy Yard.

"And when you entered the basement, what did you find?" Zola was asking.

I tensed up. This was potentially the worst part of Brandon's testimony––the part where he had to admit out loud that he had assaulted Messina and his cronies in order to save me.

"I found my fiancée duct-taped to a chair, her face beaten black and blue," Brandon said in a voice that shook slightly. "She had a nasty gash over one eye, which was nearly swelled shut, and her neck, shoulders, and face were all badly bruised."

"Oh my," a woman sitting next to me in the gallery whispered, covering her mouth with her hand.

Brandon's eyes zeroed in on me, and I nodded slightly, hoping to communicate with everything I could my gratitude for what he was doing. For the fact that he had been able to find me at all.

Zola asked a few more questions before dramatically turning back to the courtroom, which had gone silent with Brandon's straightforward testimony.

"No further questions," he said before turning to Cipolla with a smirk. "Your witness."

Cipolla shuffled a few papers together, then wiped a bit of sweat off his forehead before he stood up to cross-examine Brandon.

"Mr. Sterling," he started. "You're from Dorchester originally, are you not?"

Brandon nodded. "I am." He grinned at the jury, where I had noticed more than one female juror staring at him with a lustful expression. "Same as Mark Wahlberg."

"And were you associated with men by the names of Douglas Murphy and Michael Larsen?"