PART 2
I woke up after surgery feeling like a piece of metal was burning inside my leg. Dr. Samuel Wilcoxson showed me the X-rays with a solemn expression.
“We reconstructed the joint,” Dr. Wilcoxson explained. “You’ll be able to walk again, but you may never regain full range of motion.”
Austin had changed the rest of my life in under two seconds. An hour later, Agent Paige Hoskins from the California Prosecutor’s Office came into my room.
“I need you to tell me what happened,” Agent Hoskins said gently.
Before I could answer, my mother burst through the door.
“My daughter fell in the kitchen,” Mom cut in quickly. “She’s confused by the medication.”
Agent Hoskins didn’t even look at her, holding her ground.
“I’m talking to Monica,” Agent Hoskins asserted firmly. “Wait outside.”
Once we were alone, I met her eyes and repeated the truth.
“Austin hit me with a lug wrench, and my mother saw it and then applauded,” I stated clearly.
The next morning my cousin Holly arrived with flowers and a pale face.
“Austin went to Uncle Robert’s house,” Holly revealed nervously. “He said that no one would believe you and that your mother was already getting statements.”
Shortly after, Naomi appeared with several folders in her arms. She’d gathered emails, loan applications, and contracts where Austin listed himself as single in some and married in others.
“I thought I was preparing for my wedding,” Naomi whispered sadly. “Actually, I was organizing the evidence against him.”
That afternoon Kathleen arrived with a dark leather notebook.
“I wrote down his lies here for five years,” Kathleen shared, opening the pages.
Inside were fabricated trips, broken promises, deadlines, and threats. Near the end, one line froze me.
“If anyone tells the truth about me, I’m going to make sure they regret it,” the entry read.
The attack that night hadn’t been spontaneous — Austin had spent years convinced he could punish anyone who contradicted him. On the third day, Mom returned to the hospital holding a large envelope.
Inside were statements signed by family members, all claiming I’d slipped during dinner.
“There were no witnesses,” I said, staring at the papers.
Mom smiled with cold satisfaction.
“Now then, sign yours and this is over,” Mom instructed.
“You saw your son break my knee,” I reminded her softly.
“He made a mistake because you provoked him,” Mom snapped back. “I won’t lose my son because of your obsession with being right.”
I tore the sheets one by one in front of her.
“I don’t choose strangers,” I declared. “I choose the truth.”
When she left, Agent Hoskins appeared from the hallway, where she’d been waiting.
“Your case has just been strengthened,” Agent Hoskins told me.
Twenty days later, physiotherapy began, and every attempt to bend my knee brought back the sound of the impact and the memory of her applause. My therapist, Brenda Rivas, kept pushing me forward.
“Don’t measure progress by pain,” Brenda reminded me. “Measure it by movement.”
While I was learning to lift my foot one centimeter, Austin was trying to erase his tracks. The prosecution found the lug wrench hidden in the ceiling of my mother’s garage with traces of my blood on it, even though Austin had sworn he’d never touched it.
He then offered Kathleen eight hundred thousand dollars to deny the marriage, and when she refused, he threatened her life. Naomi handed over documents to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, while a business partner testified he’d watched Austin shredding files for nearly two hours as the cameras recorded everything.
One afternoon, Agent Hoskins called my room.
“The prosecutor wants to see you tomorrow because they found something else on Austin’s computer,” Agent Hoskins announced.
“What thing?” I asked, gripping the receiver tighter.
“A file with your name, photographs of your house, and a list of people he planned to force to testify against you,” she revealed.
The air left my lungs.
“How long had he had it?” I questioned weakly.
“Even before you found the marriage certificate,” Agent Hoskins replied gravely.
That fake wedding wasn’t Austin’s only secret, and the next day we’d learn just how far he was willing to go to destroy me.
