Christian’s lawyers issued their first statement before midnight.
They called the allegations “outrageous.”
They claimed Raymond Voss was an unstable criminal trying to extort a celebrity.
They described Dr. Lawson’s arrest as unrelated.
They accused Sabrina of fabricating accusations because Christian refused to leave me.
Then they reached for their favorite weapon.
Me.
“Mr. Prescott remains devoted to his beloved fiancée, Genevieve Laurent, and is confident that when she is physically and emotionally able to speak, she will confirm the depth of their relationship.”
Claire read that sentence aloud in my hospital room.
I smiled.
“They’re using me as his defense.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She stared at me.
“Good?”
“They just told everyone my voice matters.”
By morning, fans had gathered outside the courthouse.
Some carried signs.
WE BELIEVE CHRISTIAN.
FREE OUR KING.
GENEVIEVE NEEDS HIM.
One woman screamed into a television camera that I would “die without Christian’s love.”
I watched from my bed.
Then I asked Dr. Shah whether leaving the hospital for one hour would endanger me.
She looked at me as though I had asked permission to go skydiving.
“Absolutely not.”
I waited.
She sighed.
“Where?”
“Downstairs.”
“For what?”
“A press conference.”
“No.”
“Priya.”
“No.”
“Ten minutes.”
“Genevieve—”
“Five.”
She folded her arms.
“You are the worst patient I have ever treated.”
“Is that a yes?”
“That is me reconsidering every career decision I’ve made.”
We compromised.
The press conference happened in the hospital’s private conference room.
No crowd.
One camera.
Claire beside me.
Dr. Shah nearby.
I wore a cream blouse and no makeup.
Bandages covered the right side of my face.
For years, Christian’s publicists had taught me camera angles.
Lift your chin.
Turn toward the light.
Hide imperfections.
Smile before difficult questions.
That morning, I ignored every lesson.
I faced the camera directly.
The red light appeared.
Claire began.
“My client will make a statement. She will not take questions.”
Then she moved aside.
For several seconds, I said nothing.
America saw my swollen eye.
The bruises.
The bandages.
My shaking hands.
“My name is Genevieve Laurent.”
My voice sounded different than I expected.
Stronger.
“One week ago, I believed I was preparing to marry the man I loved.”
I swallowed.
“Today, I know that man arranged the attack that put me in this hospital.”
No dramatic music.
No editing.
No publicist.
Just truth.
“I heard Christian discussing the attack while he believed I was unconscious.”
I explained Gabriel’s role.
Raymond.
Lawson.
The hidden relationship.
Leo.
I did not blame the child.
I made that clear.
“A four-year-old boy is not responsible for what his parents did.”
Then I spoke about my pregnancies.
That was the hardest part.
“For years, I believed my body had failed me.”
My voice broke.
I allowed it.
“I apologized to Christian after every miscarriage. I told him I was sorry I couldn’t give him the family we dreamed about.”
Tears slipped down my face.
“He already had a family.”
I looked directly into the camera.
“And according to evidence now in the hands of law enforcement, he interfered with my medical care to make sure I lost mine.”
Claire shifted beside me.
I continued.
“Christian’s attorneys say he loves me.”
I paused.
“Love does not require a woman to be frightened, dependent, scarred, silent, or grateful for survival.”
Those words traveled farther than anything Christian ever sang.
Within an hour, the video had millions of views.
Sponsors suspended contracts.
Radio stations removed Christian from promotional events.
His record label announced an internal review.
Fans who had defended him began deleting posts.
Not everyone believed me.
Some never would.
But belief stopped mattering once evidence became public.
Raymond pleaded guilty and agreed to testify.
Lawson accepted a cooperation agreement after prosecutors confronted him with the recordings from Sabrina’s tablet.
Financial records showed Christian funded the attack.
Security footage showed Raymond following me before the dress fitting.
Phone location records placed Christian and Raymond’s intermediary together days before the assault.
The case no longer depended on my word.
It depended on his.
And Christian had talked too much.
The wedding day arrived three days later.
The day that was supposed to be ours.
At ten in the morning, flowers still arrived at the venue because nobody had canceled one of the supplier orders.
White peonies.
Claire arranged for them to be delivered to the hospital instead.
My room filled with them.
I laughed for the first time since the attack.
Then I cried.
Because grief is strange.
You can hate what someone became and still mourn who you believed they were.
I mourned the Christian who sang unfinished songs to me in our kitchen.
The man who once drove seven hours through a snowstorm because my mother was in the hospital.
The man who held me beneath cheap motel blankets and promised that if he ever became famous, none of it would change us.
Maybe that man had never existed.
Or maybe success had exposed something he had always hidden.
I would never know.
Two months later, the trial began.
Christian entered the courtroom in a navy suit.
No handcuffs.
Perfect hair.
The same face that had sold millions of albums.
For one dangerous second, seeing him made my body remember loving him.
Then he looked at me.
His expression changed.
Not remorse.
Anger.
He believed I had betrayed him.
That was Christian’s final delusion.
The victim was the traitor because she refused to remain a victim.
His defense attacked everyone.
Raymond wanted a lighter sentence.
Lawson wanted immunity.
Sabrina was jealous.
Gabriel wanted control of Christian’s career.
Claire was publicity hungry.
And I?
I was traumatized.
Confused.
Unreliable.
Christian’s attorney displayed old photographs of us smiling.
Vacations.
Award shows.
Christmas.
Our engagement.
“Does this look like a woman who feared my client?”
I wanted to laugh.
Abuse does not erase birthdays.
Betrayal does not travel backward through time and remove every smile.
When I testified, the courtroom was silent.
Christian watched me.
His lawyer asked whether I still loved him.
Claire objected.
The judge allowed the question.
I thought about it.
“No.”
“Never?”
“That wasn’t the question.”
His attorney stiffened.
“Did you love him before?”
“Yes.”
“Deeply?”
“Yes.”
“So deeply that you wanted to marry him?”
“Yes.”
“Yet now you expect this jury to believe that same man wanted to destroy you.”
I looked toward Christian.
“He did not want to destroy me.”
The attorney smiled.
“Exactly.”
“He wanted to control what remained.”
The smile vanished.
I explained what I heard.
Every sentence.
Every pause.
Then prosecutors played the recordings.
Christian saying the attack made things easier.
Christian discussing Lawson.
Christian saying I trusted him.
Christian admitting to Sabrina that my pregnancies were “never supposed to happen.”
The jury listened.
Christian stopped looking at me.
Gabriel testified next.
He admitted his failures.
He admitted knowing about Sabrina.
Admitted helping Christian maintain lies for years.
The defense tried to destroy him.
Gabriel did not resist.
“I protected his career when I should have protected people from him,” he told the jury.
That sentence mattered because it cost him something.
After trial, Gabriel resigned from music management entirely.
Sabrina testified.
Then Lawson.
Then Raymond.
The evidence became a wall.
Christian’s attorneys could chip at pieces.
They could not knock it down.
The jury deliberated eleven hours.
I sat with Claire in a courthouse room drinking terrible coffee.
When the bailiff finally called us back, my knees nearly gave out.
Christian stood.
I stood.
The foreperson read the verdicts.
Guilty.
Conspiracy.
Guilty.
Solicitation related to the attack.
Guilty.
Witness and evidence-related offenses.
Guilty.
Additional financial charges.
Each word removed another brick from the prison he had built around me.
Christian closed his eyes.
His mother began crying behind him.
I felt no joy watching her.
No celebration.
Just relief.
Then Christian turned.
For a second, our eyes met.
He mouthed something.
I could not hear it.
But I understood.
I loved you.
Maybe he believed that.
Some people call possession love because they have never learned the difference.
Officers led him away.
Outside, hundreds of reporters waited.
Claire asked whether I wanted another exit.
I shook my head.
We walked through the main doors.
Cameras flashed.
People shouted questions.
“Genevieve!”
“How do you feel?”
“Do you forgive Christian?”
“What happens now?”
I stopped.
Claire looked surprised.
I turned toward the microphones.
For five years, I had been introduced as Christian Prescott’s girlfriend.
Then fiancée.
Then victim.
I was tired of being defined by what he had done.
“What happens now?” I repeated.
The reporters quieted.
I smiled carefully.
“Now I find out who I am without him.”
And for the first time, that question did not terrify me.
It felt like freedom.
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