Until You Return

Prologue

The courtroom was silent. It was suffocating in the way only places of judgment could be. The scent of stale coffee and overworked air conditioning mixed with thick tension hung in the air. It was the kind of silence that could make or break a person, and today, that person was me.

My breath was shallow, barely noticeable, as if my lungs had forgotten how to function in the intense atmosphere of lawfare.

I wasn't supposed to even be here, not like this at least. But Andrew had insisted, no, demanded my involvement. The defense needed this, he had said. We couldn't risk any mistakes, not now. Not when everything was on the line. I was the one who had found the crack in the prosecution's case, the thread of doubt that, if pulled just right, could unravel everything they had built.

The case had spiraled into something much larger than we'd anticipated when Andrew had taken it on. It had started as just another financial dispute, but layer by layer, it became a vortex of deceit, manipulation, and corporate greed. The stakes weren't just legal anymore, they were personal.

Andrew, seated in front of me, leaned back slightly, "You've got this, Gianna. Just focus on the facts." His voice was barely above a whisper.

I nodded, rising to my feet. My pulse was hammering in my ears, making it hard to concentrate. With each step I took through those gates, all eyes plastered on me, expecting me to deliver a final blow or salvage whatever we had left.

I glanced back at the defendant's table, where our client Carmichael sat with an impassive expression. And as the trial dragged on and every piece of financial misconduct was laid bare, his expression hadn't changed. He was the kind of man who never gave anything away, even as I held the key to his future. The prosecution's evidence was strong, the witnesses were damning. But there was something off in the prosecution's case, something small, almost invisible. A crack in their story.

That was what I was clinging to now.

So here I stood, at the center of it all, files gripped tightly in my hands, knuckles white with the pressure of holding something so fragile. I could see the impatience in their faces.

This wasn't just about winning or losing anymore, this was about survival.

I took a deep breath, feeling the weight of the room pressing against me. The jury was waiting for answers. They wanted clarity. And that's what I was supposed to give them even if it was nothing but a carefully constructed version of the truth.

The argument I had practiced over and over was ready to spill out but as I opened my mouth to speak, all the blood from my face drained. My mind wandered to a place I had been long before all of this.

"Let it go, Gianna." His back facing me as he spoke, his voice was cold as ice, laced with unmistakable hatred. He took a final puff from his cigarette, letting the smoke curl from his lips as if savoring the moment before flicking the smoldering filter onto the concrete. The heel of his shoe crushed it into the pavement, the motion as deliberate and final as his words.

I stood there, frozen, the pounding in my chest was desperate as if it were trying to escape the nightmare unfolding before me. He never called me Gianna unless something was deeply wrong. To him, I had always been Gigi, a name that felt like an embrace, something that belonged to just us. But now, the sound of my full name cut through me like a blade, leaving me raw and exposed to a reality I was too afraid to face.

"Stephan... what are you saying? How can you—" My voice cracked as I struggled to find the right words, my mind tangled in disbelief.

He didn't even bother to face me. Each step he took was slow and deliberate, as if each one were a nail in the coffin of whatever we had once shared. "How can I what, Gianna? Tell you the truth? The truth you've been so desperate to ignore?" His voice dripped with contempt, each word heavier than the last. "You wanted honesty, didn't you? Well, here it is. You're nothing to me. You never were."