Chapter 131
With Ivanna already gone, Maxine filed a lawsuit against Gabriel, representing herself as both the plaintiff and her own attorney.
The evidence she’d kept at the firm had been wiped by Kathleen, so now she was relying on the new material she’d recently tracked down and organized herself.
The trial was getting heated. The defense lawyer was struggling to prove Gabriel had nothing to do with Ivanna’s death. Too much time had passed, and Gabriel’s reckless, careless ways meant he hadn’t prepared anything in advance. That made it nearly impossible for his lawyer to clear his name.
As Maxine laid out her arguments, she was already thinking about how to handle the defense attorney, who seemed sharp, unflappable, and totally in
control.
The opposing lawyer said, “At last, you have no way to prove that Ms. Sandoval and Mr. Gabriel even knew each other. Everyone knows there’s a huge gap between their social classes. Under normal circumstances, they’d never have crossed paths.”
Maxine replied, “No, I have surveillance footage that shows, just days before the incident, Gabriel threatened Ms. Sandoval and even took her to a hotet.”
Sitting at the defendant’s table, Gabriel’s face suddenly darkened. He clearly realized which surveillance video she was
talking about.
Maxine reached into her bag for the folder with her evidence, but when she opened it, the USB drive with the surveillance footage had vanished.
She searched through the folder again in disbelief. To avoid any surprises today, she’d organized everything for court yesterday afternoon and left it in the study. She remembered perfectly that she’d put the USB drive right inside.
Suddenly, she remembered that last night, just before bed, Brian had said he needed to find a book and spent a long time in the study. That must have been when he took it from her folder.
She instinctively glanced at the gallery and met Kathleen’s smug, taunting gaze, instantly realizing this was all her doing.
So, who had taken the evidence was now painfully obvious.
The judge, seeing she still hadn’t moved, spoke up to remind her, “Plaintiff, I need you to present your evidence now.”
Gabriel, sitting at the defendant’s table, couldn’t help but gloat. “What’s wrong, Mrs. Mason? Let’s see your evidence, if you’ve got any.”
The judge shot him a warning for his attitude, but at that moment, everyone’s attention was locked on Maxine, waiting to see if she could produce any solid proof.
Maxine took a deep breath and said clearly, “The evidence I prepared is missing.”
Her words sent a wave of shock through the courtroom, even the judge frowned. But before anyone could react further, she added, “But I still have a backup on my phone. Could someone help me get it up on the screen?”
Before coming here, just to be safe, she’d copied the video and other files onto her phone. Thank goodness she’d thought ahead. Otherwise, she’d have no chance of winning today.
If she lost this case, with Gabriel’s resources, he’d have no trouble wiping out whatever evidence was left.
The surveillance footage made everything painfully clear. Ivanna’s despair was so raw, it reached everyone watching and left the whole room in stunned silence. It wasn’t until the video ended that people finally snapped out of it.
They realized that Gabriel had been lying the entire time.
From the moment the video started, Gabriel just sat there, frozen and shell–shocked. He never thought Maxine would actually pull off showing the surveillance footage.
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