“Is he conscious, sir?”
I looked down at Mark, who was moaning in a puddle of his own making.
“He is,” I said. “Unfortunately.”
Part 4: The Court of Old Friends
The arrest was standard. They handcuffed me, but they didn’t rough me up. The responding officer saw the blood on my face, the bat on the lawn, and Mark screaming threats. He saw a messy domestic dispute.
But Mark had money. And money changes the narrative.
Three days later, I was sitting in the county courthouse. The charge wasn’t simple assault. It was “Attempted Murder” and “Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon.”
Mark sat at the plaintiff’s table in a wheelchair, his leg in a cast, his ribs taped. He played the part beautifully. He looked pathetic, victimized, and rich.
His lawyer, a slick man in a three-thousand-dollar suit named Mr. Sterling (Mark’s uncle, of course), paced the floor.
