Page 96 of Nesting With My Three Alphas
Two years. Not a lifetime, but enough. Enough for me to build an unshakeable life, enough for Marcus to learn that actions had consequences, enough for justice to feel real.
And that's when Marcus finally lost it completely.
"Do you know who I am?" he shouted, his voice echoing off the courtroom walls as his lawyers tried to restrain him. "Do you know how much money I have? How much influence?"
The mask had finally come off. All that sophisticated charm, all that carefully cultivated image. Gone. What was left was exactly what I'd always suspected lay underneath. A spoiled man-child having a tantrum because the world wasn't arranging itself according to his wishes.
"I can buy this whole pathetic town!" Marcus continued, his face red with rage. "I can destroy all of you! You think some backwoods judge and a courthouse full of hillbillies can touch me?"
The judge's expression didn't change, but I caught the slight tightening around his eyes that suggested Marcus had just made a serious tactical error.
"Mr. Vanderbilt," the judge said calmly, "your outburst has been noted for the record. Bailiff, please remove the defendant."
As the bailiff moved toward Marcus, something inside me shifted. For two years, I'd been afraid of this man, had let his anger and threats shape my entire existence. And now, watching him being dragged out of a courtroom while screaming about his money and influence, I realized something fundamental.
He was just a bully. He'd always been just a bully.
Bullies were scary when you were alone, when you believed their version of reality, when you thought you deserved their treatment. But surrounded by people who loved you, supported by a community that had your back, validated by a system that recognized wrong when it saw it?
Bullies were just sad, small people having tantrums.
I stood up in the gallery, my voice carrying clearly across the courtroom: "Your Honor, may I address the defendant?"
The judge looked surprised but nodded. "You may, Ms. Lennox."
I turned to face Marcus, who was still struggling against the bailiff's grip, his perfect composure completely shattered.
"You spent two years trying to convince me I was nothing without you," I said, my voice steady and clear. "That I was broken, unworthy, too much for anyone to love. But look at me now."
I gestured toward my pack, toward the gallery full of Hollow Haven residents who'd come to support me, toward the life I'd built from the ashes of what he'd tried to destroy.
"I have a family who chose me. A community that protects me. A career I'm building on my own terms. A life full of real love, not control disguised as care." I took a breath, feeling the weight of every word. "You have no power over me anymore. You never really did."
Marcus's struggles ceased for a moment, his eyes meeting mine across the courtroom. I saw something flicker there.Recognition, maybe, or the first dawning awareness that the world had moved on without him.
"The only thing you ever had was my fear," I continued. "And I'm not afraid of you anymore."
The bailiff resumed escorting Marcus out, but his fight had gone out of him. He looked smaller somehow, diminished by the loss of the fear that had given him power over me.
After he was gone, the courtroom erupted in quiet celebration. Chloe shook my hand, the judge commended my courage, and various Hollow Haven residents came forward to congratulate me on what everyone seemed to understand was more than just a legal victory.
It was a reclamation.
Outside the courthouse, my pack surrounded me with the kind of fierce protectiveness that had become my new normal. Jonah's arm around my shoulders, Reed's hand on my back, Micah's fingers intertwined with mine. All of them anchoring me to this new reality where I was valued and protected and loved.
"How do you feel?" Micah asked as we walked toward the parking lot.
I considered the question seriously. How did I feel? Relieved, certainly. Vindicated. Proud of myself in a way I'd forgotten was possible.
But mostly, I felt free.
"Like I can finally stop looking over my shoulder," I said. "Like the past is actually past now, instead of something that might come back to destroy what we've built."
"He can't touch you anymore," Reed said with quiet certainty. "Legally, financially, physically. We've made sure of that."
"And even if he tries," Jonah added, "he'll have to go through all of us."
All of us. Not just my three alphas, but the entire community that had rallied around me today. Sheriff Rowe, who'd testifiedwith professional precision. Mrs. Carrington, who'd described Marcus's intimidation attempts with withering disapproval. The dozen other Hollow Haven residents who'd taken time off work to sit in a courthouse gallery just to show their support.
