POV: Jasmine
The courtroom was packed with press, spectators, and legal teams bristling with expensive suits and calculated expressions.
I sat at the defense table, flanked by Patricia Krasinsky and two junior associates, with the brothers arranged in the gallery directly behind me. Their presence radiated through the wooden barrier—Liam's steady warmth, Asher's coiled tension, Finn's uncharacteristic stillness. A united front against whatever was coming.
Across the aisle, Adelyn looked every inch the wronged woman.
She'd dressed the part with surgical precision—a soft blue cardigan over a modest blouse, minimal makeup that somehow enhanced the shadows under her eyes, hair pulled back in a simple ponytail that made her look younger, more vulnerable. Her expression managed to appear wounded even when her eyes flashed with triumph each time she caught me looking.
The performance was flawless. I almost admired it.
"All rise for the Honorable Judge Margaret Chen."
The judge took her seat with brisk efficiency, her silver-streaked hair and wire-rimmed glasses lending an air of intellectual authority. She surveyed the packed courtroom with obvious displeasure.
"I'll remind everyone that this is a preliminary hearing, not a circus. Any disruptions will result in immediate removal." Her gaze swept across the press section. "That includes unauthorized photography or recording."
The first hearing focused on establishing facts. Adelyn's lead counsel—a shark named Victoria Hartwell with a reputation for dismantling witnesses—rose to deliver her opening statement.
"Your Honor, we're here today because my client suffered months of psychological abuse in a hostile workplace. A workplace where three powerful men engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate, creating an environment of favoritism, intimidation, and professional sabotage against anyone who dared object."
She paced before the bench, heels clicking with predatory precision.
"Ms. Adelyn Morrison's only crime was loving Liam Blackwood before Jasmine Harlow arrived. Her only mistake was believing that hard work and loyalty would be rewarded. Instead, she was systematically marginalized, humiliated, and ultimately terminated—all because she represented a threat to Ms. Harlow's position."
I kept my face neutral, but my nails dug crescents into my palms beneath the table.
Hartwell painted a picture of psychological warfare—of whispered campaigns and stolen opportunities, of a woman gradually pushed to the margins of her own career while watching her replacement ascend on the strength of sexual favors rather than professional merit.
By the time she finished, half the gallery was looking at me like I'd drowned puppies for sport.
Patricia's rebuttal was precise and clinical, laying out documented evidence of Adelyn's harassment campaign, the leaked photos, the coordinated media attack. But facts felt thin against the emotional narrative Hartwell had constructed.
Then came my turn on the stand.
The walk from the defense table to the witness box felt endless. Every eye in the courtroom tracked my movement, weighing and measuring and judging. I placed my hand on the Bible, swore to tell the truth, and settled into the chair that would determine my future.
Hartwell approached with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"Ms. Harlow, isn't it true that you began your sexual relationship with the Blackwood brothers while employed as their subordinate?"
"My personal relationships developed after I had already proven my professional value."
"That's not what I asked." Hartwell's voice sharpened. "Yes or no—were you engaged in sexual relationships with your direct supervisors while working at Cadence Records?"
"Yes."
A murmur rippled through the gallery. Hartwell's smile widened.
"And isn't it true that you received rapid promotions that coincided suspiciously with these relationships?"
"I received promotions based on documented achievements, including saving the company two hundred thousand dollars through identifying a contract error that our entire legal team had missed."
"Convenient timing, though, wouldn't you say? The promotions accelerated significantly after your... personal involvement with the Blackwoods began."
"Correlation isn't causation. My work product spoke for itself."
The questioning continued for hours.
Hartwell was relentless, circling back to the same insinuations from different angles, designed to exhaust me, trip me up, make me emotional. She asked about specific dates, about private conversations, about moments of intimacy that had somehow been documented in Adelyn's obsessive surveillance.
But I held steady.
Every survival skill I'd ever learned—from foster homes where showing weakness meant becoming a target, from years of protecting Leo while pretending everything was fine, from Jackson's sick games where composure was the only armor I had—I channeled all of it into maintaining my calm.
"Ms. Harlow, would you describe yourself as an ambitious woman?"
"I would describe myself as a competent professional who works hard."
"And you'd do anything to advance that career, wouldn't you?"
"I would do anything ethical and legal, yes."
"Anything at all?"
"Within appropriate boundaries."
Hartwell paused, consulting her notes with theatrical deliberation. The gallery shifted restlessly. Even Judge Chen leaned forward slightly, sensing the change in atmosphere.
Then Hartwell dropped the bomb.
"Ms. Harlow, are you familiar with a website called the Virtue Exchange?"
The air left my lungs.
The question I'd been dreading since that first midnight text. The secret that had lived in my chest like a tumor, growing heavier with each passing day. I felt the brothers tense behind me, felt Patricia's sharp intake of breath beside me.
"I don't see how that's relevant."
"It's very relevant, Your Honor." Hartwell's smile spread like an oil slick, a shark scenting blood in the water. She turned to address the bench directly. "We have evidence that Ms. Harlow participated in an online auction selling her virginity to the highest bidder. Evidence that speaks directly to her character and her pattern of using sex for financial gain."
The courtroom erupted.
Gasps, murmurs, the furious clicking of phones being silenced by bailiffs. Judge Chen's gavel cracked against wood like gunfire.
"Order! I will have order in this courtroom!"
But the damage was done. I could feel it spreading through the gallery like poison—the shift in perception, the recalculation of everything they'd heard today through this new, damning lens.
Hartwell waited for the chaos to subside, savoring the moment.
"We'll be presenting this evidence in the second hearing," she announced to the murmuring courtroom. "Including the identity of the anonymous buyer who paid thirty-seven thousand dollars for Ms. Harlow's virginity."